HA! What fun. Definitely something that I would not do in real life. There is a bit of a story behind my latest adventure of skydiving with new found friend Audio Zenith. I recently posted to the SLED listserve a bit of a formal blurb about the grad student group. Audio and another responded that they would prefer more informal conversations in SL which is fine by me but I think that some structure and formality would help poor struggling grad students, like myself. So I responded about the purpose of the group, blah blah blah. After reflecting on my response I started to feel badly hoping that no one would take that personally. When I saw Audio online I wanted to make sure it was all OK. Funny thing is that he had no idea what I was talking about, LOL, so we went skydiving!

Informal meetings are great – look how much fun this spontaneous get together was and what I learned about Audio and his 6 years of exprience in distance education. The social affordances of SL allows us to experience that “water cooler” talk that is known to bind communities. But without the formality of the Grad Student group and our meeting I might have never had the chance to meet Audio – what place does each have in building community?

I was hard at work tracking down a speaker for our grad student meeting Wednesday when I got an IM from my friend Noir asking about the public NMC campus space. I had heard on the SLED listserve that there was going to be a public campus but I did not think it had officially launched. I went on the SL Observer and there was nothing (poor CDB is still the lone writer – I need to contribute soon!). I checked the search feature in SL and it also turned up empty since the new name was not announced.

Snooping around, which seems to be what I do best lately in SL (still trying to track down anyone from the Masie LearnLand campus – they must think I am crazy) I came upon flickr pics of Learn, NMC’s new public campus.

There has been much discussion about closed spaces and some members of the SLED/Grad student group felt very strongly about meeting in a public space. There is some value to people floating in and out without needing special access. While I understood this point I was disappointed not to use the NMC campous with all its great meeting spaces. We could have really used the ampitheater when we hosted Chris Dede’s talk – the turn out was wonderful. Well, I personally cannot wait to use this space and will continue to consider the closed space for when I introduce my undergraduate to SL in the fall.

Great job guys!

Update on photography in Second Life – the best lighting is Sunrise but you have to be facing East (the sun) to avoid harsh shadows on your face.

Anyone in RL who knows me also knows that I love photography. For a short time I worked for my family’s photography studio and photographed hundreds of highschool seniors. Even though I decided to leave the photography profession it is still something that I love to explore as a hobby. Recently I had the pleasure of being photographed by Anya and decided to experiment with creating “professional” portraits in SL. Would the same skills needed to create portraits in RL apply to SL? What new skills would be needed?

Linden Lifestyles did a good job of providing a novice SL photographer with a few tips on lighting and controling the gaze of your AV . Once you have the Altl + Click mastered the hardest part is composition. You do not want your AV smack dab in the middle of the frame nor do you want to have the shoulders squared off to the camera (end up looking like a line backer).

The key is to have a bit of a tilt in the shoulders – just like a RL photograph (thinking back to all the high school students who I made look thinner with the technique *smile*). I did go ahead and purchases a simple modeling studio that I set up in my sky box – this helps to give that “studio” look. I even saw a soft light box for sale that might help control some of the shadows. Purchasing one would be exciting – getting closer to a real studio set up. My dad would be proud (although he might think I am crazy).

Sconset Beach, originally uploaded by dmirliss.

Flickr has recently received a lot of bad press in the Second Life community lately (see cogdogblog) because of their policy against images that do not fall into the strictest definition of a photograph. Putting this argument aside (if you look into my account I have close to 100 SL images myself), I am absolutely loving my flickr account. It might be the fact that I practically grew up in a darkroom, helping my professional photographer father develop Black and White images (I am not that old – color photographs were in existence) or that I love to create photographs myself. I would take a guess and say that it is a combination of displaying my art and sharing it with others. color photographs were in existence) or that I love to create photographs myself. I would take a guess and say that it is a combination of displaying my art and sharing it with others.

Sharing my images also has some interesting consequences. The beach picture that is featured in this post is being used for a travel web site, www.homeandabroad.com, to advertise Nantucket (very cool). Others have also enjoyed my photographs, adding them as their favorites. I always look to see who has added my pics as favorites and what other images they had in their favorites collection. It started with my banner pic - a very innocent picture of flowers. Then it escalated to a picture of my SL avatar - ok, someone thinks she looks good (I spent enough money on her). Then someone added a pic of my husband’s feet to their favorites – ewwww. Why is there a pic of my husband’s feet? Well, I was bored on the same beach and started to take pictures of anything including feet (I also took a pic of my own feet). When I looked at this person’s profile she had a collection of men’s feet all tagged as her favorites. I am tempted to comment back “Get your own hairy feet – these are taken!”. *smile*