The avatar is one's external projection of some aspect of their internal self. Through my portraits I try to give my subjects a glimpse into something they can never capture on their own: how someone else sees them. Hopefully I've accomplished that by my work. All subjects receive a copy of the final snapshot at no cost regardless of whether it cost me a simple L10 or much--much--more in upload fees to get "the one."

My process is both simple and, perhaps surprisingly, quite involved. First, I limit myself quite a bit in my options:

(1) I almost always use the Catznip Viewer (or the LL standard) and its snapshot function. While there are better viewers out there for daily use (Firestorm) and photography in particular (Black Dragon), I limit myself to the standard viewer because that is the default view of Second Life. I would love to be able to mess with the FOV or derender, but those options aren't available in the standard viewers snapshot. I use the 512x512 size as it is the standard texture size.

(2) I don't vary the windlight settings. I use whatever settings the parcel or sim have in effect at that time. There are a few "filters" with the snapshot (e.g. black and white, intense, video camera) that I do use, but that is it.

(3) Most subjects do not know that their portrait is being taken. Thus there are no poseballs, no special backdrops, no special animations or gestures. They are as they are, at that moment, visible on my screen. The vast majority are dancing, which means they are constantly moving in and out of frame. To capture them I'll sometimes refresh dozens or dozens of dozens of times...yet on occasion I get lucky and get the best shot on the first try. I love it when that happens.

(4) There are no after edits (be they cropping or color adjustment or filtering). I simply download them from the viewer "as is" and upload them to Flickr.

So that's basically it. Sounds simple, I know. But give it a try sometime and you'll find that a getting a good shot is surprising elusive. Getting an incredible one is even rarer.

Of course there are lots of other interesting things in Second Life than the people, from virtual landscapes lovingly sculpted to handbuilt prim-by-prim creations. Some are apparent, some are hidden away... all are visible if you take the time to smell the virtual roses. So you'll find the odd abstract (which I love) and non-portraits in the albums section With those I will sometimes not use the 512x512 and instead download the image to my computer at a higher resolution, for post-processing. Regardless, I also try to put in the comments whether or not there was any change made so that you, the viewer, can have a better idea as to what you are seeing.

Please feel free to contact me in-world or via Flickr.

Thanks for reading,

Bear