La Vallée

I visited La Vallée, today. This is a very pretty build…

… with tons of beautiful settings…

… in which to take gorgeous pictures…

… the sense of scale here is fabulous…

… providing plenty of deep vistas…

… I went with the ‘shared’ environment lighting…

… which gave me these wonderful Kodachrome images…

… this is a destination well worth visiting…

… enough to make any photographer smile (:

Insilico Revitalised

I must have missed the memo that said Insilico was being remodelled, but, there you are, I did. I recently blogged about Insilico Mars, which I only recently discovered, despite being extremely familiar with Insilico, having hung out there, regularly, for years. I have to admit to not having been there for, at least, seven months, because it never changed. It was cool, but always the same, for a long time. Suddenly, when you TP there, you arrive in this very cool ‘Welcome Centre’, which simply didn’t exist, a year ago…

… from there, you can TP to various stunning locals that also, I’m pretty sure, didn’t exist a year ago. A year ago, once you got out of the central arrival area, with it’s shopping area, things got dull, pretty quickly. That isn’t the case, now…

… there are all kinds of gorgeous locations, now, I simply do not remember seeing/being able to access, a year ago…

… it was nice to eventually find the old shopping district…

… complete with this laser that follows you across what used to be the arrival floor. This laser has always intrigued me, the fact that it obviously recognises avatars, and targets them in real time, as they move, is, for me, such a step above the usual SL physics, as to be almost astonishingly impressive.

Focus

I visited the Focus installation, this morning…

… I can’t believe this amazing work has been running for 8 months and I’ve only just found it…

… It’s possible I saw it mentioned somewhere and didn’t register it, because I’m not a huge fan of these 3D extravaganza-type builds. I usually find them needlessly confusing and, invariably, blandly repetitive…

… this is absolutely NOT the case, here. The level of gorgeous complexity here is astounding…

… and the colours are really beautiful…

… I cannot conceive how one would go about creating something this huge and complex, without it being just a chaotic nightmare…

… but this is clearly a highly structured creation…

… the stunning sum of all it’s intricate, varied parts…

… I found it never feels cluttered, or overwhelming, but always feels visually rich…

… and spatially stunning…

… there are various walkways to follow…

… but it’s not too hard to fall off them, and wind up having to fly around, exploring. You can also actually get stuck on the lower level, hitting invisible ceilings when you try to fly up, but it’s not too hard to find a way up, again…

… there’s just too much to absorb, in a single visit, although taking 247 photos certainly provided me with the material to review what I’d seen, at my leisure. D B Bailey told me he is always tinkering with it, so I’m sure coming back would be rewarded with new wonders to see…

… the visual richness, here, is magnificent…

… and I’m very glad I finally made it here (:

Adelina-Artisan Eden

My friend, Adelina, has recently opened a spacious gallery almost next to my gallery, in Wythburn. I sometimes go in there and hang out on her furniture…

… she does erotic photography, and some portraits, that tend to be monochromatic or have very limited colour palettes…

… I think her style rubbed off on me (:

Omni Random

I visited Omni Random, today…

… the place is marketed as being all about music/dj stuff…

… but it’s very pleasing visually. The ‘shared environment’ is a night-time one, but I preferred ‘midday’, as you can actually see better detail, and all the neon still looks nice…

… with ‘midday’ lighting, the place has a lovely, predominantly blue palette, which is very soothing…

… the organic landscape is dominated by a series of catwalks that will take you progressively higher, till you get to the dj/lighting booth in the huge disk overhead…

… there are several of these super-cute squirrels about, I’ve never seen these critters in SL, before. Instead of walking, they move by bouncing along, but their legs stay straight and stiff, it’s very comical, and quite sweet…

… there are cyber-cows, too, yet another critter I’ve not encountered, before…

… it’s a pretty, comic-style sim. You could get some nice pictures, here. And it definitely isn’t crowded, I didn’t see a single other avi the whole time I was here.

New Installation

There is a new installation of my latest eight works in Placebo Gallery…

… still pursuing my fascination with imaginary landscapes, this series is called ‘Imagined Landscapes’…

… for me, seeing my work on the wall, on canvas that is over three meters high…

… is extremely rewarding…

… my intention, with these works, is that they draw you in, and you get lost in these strange, ethereal worlds…

… and being able to stand in front of them when they are over three meters high, certainly makes getting lost in them possible…

… these are the worlds I dream of…

… where the surf hisses endlessly on alien shores, and continents are lost in the mist, and everything is possible.

Purple Light

This is me…

… being me…

… in a purple lit room.

Taste Cove

Yesterday I visited Taste Cove…

… there are some wonderfully photogenic areas, here…

… really interesting architecture…

… with rich colours and gorgeous textures…

… and a couple of interesting murals…

… there’s the obligatory lighthouse, but it has a really pretty house behind it…

… sadly, the ever-present lighthouse has not prevented the ubiquitous sunken trawler incident from occurring, more than one of which seems to have happened, here…

… I’d read that there were rentals, here, so I only explored the sea-front area. There are steps that go up to more buildings, but I totally loath being evicted, with a split seconds warning, from sims that are supposed to be visitor friendly (until they suddenly aren’t), so I didn’t explore those areas, though I would have liked to. The whole sea-front area has many pretty scenes for photography…

… and it was nice to see that at least one fishing boat has managed not to hit the rocks (:

Views of my Home II

I have been working, and working, since my last post about my new home, and have been having a hugely enjoyable time. I had over a thousand prims to play with, for my re-decorating/re-landscaping, and using them has been such sweet pleasure…

… I initially left my previous home open for visitors to enjoy. One day, I came home, and two total strangers were having sex in one of my bedrooms. They never even had the decency to say anything to me, just vanished a few minutes after my arrival. I was so pissed off, I have since made my home out-of-bounds to all unknown visitors. I have placed several prominent, pleasant, but definitive, signs around my new home, stating that visitors are welcome to explore my grounds, and my galleries, but will be evicted should they attempt to enter my home…

… my new home is, for me, a visual joy…

… and I feel my landscaping has only added to that visual beauty…

… I have been collecting sculpture/statuary for over a decade…

… and there are several in the grounds of my new home. This one is of an ancient goddess, who is so powerful…

… that even her statue has an effect on nature, causing a noticeable agitation in her surroundings…

… others, though just as ancient, are less powerful…

… though just as beautiful…

… I am Seraphim, queen of this place, older than all my statues combined. This is my magical queendom, you are very welcome to visit, just not my actual home, unless I know you, then it’s all cool (: