sᴘᴇᴄɪᴀʟ ɢᴜᴇsᴛ: ᴅᴀɪᴋᴏᴛᴀ ᴡɪɴᴅ - Ep.9

Today I'm very happy to introduce you all to one of the deepest, most eclectic SL artist and good friend of mine.

In her photos she can face a wide range of themes, from newness to goth, to sensuality, from sci-fi to fun situations always showing a perfect style and intense meanings.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's a big pleasure to have here the marvelous skilled, the beautiful talented: Ms. Daikota Wind !

 

Cla: Hi Daikota, how are you? I'm very excited to have you here. Thank you for accepting my invitation!

Daikota: It is rather me who thanks you for inviting me and giving me the opportunity to make myself better known to the Flickr community. I followed each of your interviews and from the start I found that you had an excellent idea. It's truly an honor to participate in your show, so thank you very much for thinking of me. And I'm fine.

 

C.: So what brought you on Second Life. How and when everything began?

D.: We have to go back in time when I worked in the early evening and early night in a bar in Brussels. Wanting to reverse my life schedules, I looked for how to spend my nights on the Internet until the early morning. At that time I was going to sleep around 6 in the morning to wake up around 1 pm and I was leaving for work around 5 pm. It was a bit by chance that I came across Second Life, I signed up, I learned to walk, to dress, to sympathize, to have fun and I quickly found this virtual world incredibly varied and interesting. I very quickly met lots of people and had a lot of adventures. At the same time I discovered that it was possible to take screenshots with a simple click and save these snapshots on my computer. I then started to take photos in order to remember the unforgettable moments I lived and the people I met. I put away all these photos without looking at them, telling myself that I would see them again in forty years when I shall be retired. One day, I still went to review the photos I had already taken and surprised … I found that some shots were really very successful. As some later pointed out to me, I had a good eye. So I started staging myself to take better pictures and that's how it all started. In November 2011, I created my Flickr page and tried to post one image every day. Rhythm that I have kept to this day.

 

C.: How did you improve your photographer skills over the years?

D.: At the very beginning, my photos were raw, without editing, published as they had been taken in Second Life. Subsequently I treated myself to Photoshop Element 2010 which is a lighter version of the real Photoshop, far too expensive for me. I learned to improve the contrast, to add shadows, to camouflage the defects emanating from our cubic and pointed avatars, to give more depth to my photos. At that time, I was not preparing anything. I let my AO turn and, like a hunter on the lookout, I waited for the right moment to pull the trigger and thus capture my moving avatar while fixing her gaze. A little later, I was offered Animare by its creator Tantrica. This allowed me to use the poses and animations integrated into the objects and to correct the flaws such as a hand that penetrates the thigh. Finally, it was only last year that a member of the Flickr community (Gaelen Blackwood) offered me the PRO Flickr subscription, which gave me access to two months of free Photoshop. And wow, what a change. I immediately adopted this application. Even though I only know how to use 2% of these abilities, I was really able to take the next step. So I collected all my coins to give it to myself. Very recently also, a good friend (Naru Darkwatch) offered me AnyPose which allowed me to make and improve my own poses. This step has also boosted my work generating more and more joy in sharing my images with the small world of Flickr/Second Life.

 

C.: As I was mentioning in the introduction, you are a super talented artist with a great creativity and intuition. You seem like able to take every type of photo and face every kind of theme. We can enjoy you art on Flickr and in world at your Daikota Gallery maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Mama%20Allpa/122/207/3505 and store maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Palazzo%20del%20Piacere/77... . If you had to define your art with one single word, what would it be?

D.: This is the most difficult question. I would like to say Unique, but each artist is unique in his field. Let's say that I like to vary my themes, my appearance, my poses, the lighting and I adapt in order to try to tell a story through my photos.

 

C.: What type of photo you find harder to take - if ever there is any?

D.: These are of course composite photos where I mix several images into one to have a scene richer in detail. It's not that it's harder to do, but it takes a bit more work. Sometimes I leave with a specific idea in mind, but it has never happened that I take a photo that is perfectly in line with this initial idea. Second Life has its limits and I have to deal with that. In general, the most difficult thing for me is to take a photo with a friend without having a clear idea at the start. I find it easier to duplicate myself on a shot than to have a partner pose. In fact, most of the photos bringing together several characters are often montages created from several images of myself.

 

C.: Let's talk about your blogger experience. How do you like it?

D.: This is very recent. It all started when a friend whose work I admire (Cathy Vathiany) suggested that I create my own blog, finding that my photos looked good and that some brands would no doubt be happy to work with me. Much later, I took the plunge by asking Black Cats Creations, whose creations I love, to kindly take me into their team of bloggers. My application was accepted and it all started from there. Several months later I asked another brand to entrust me with its products in order to showcase them, it was ::Antaya:: and more recently I asked Moz Design to do the same because this store is creating a clothing line for Prima which is a new mesh body succeeding Tonic which I have always found to be the best. Three brands is enough, I don't want to kill myself on the job and as Ethan pointed out very well in a previous interview, I might as well avoid burnout because of the extra work in which I would have locked myself up. Unofficially, I also promote the products of friends that I want to help as best I can, I am not officially their blogger but I also like to please and give a little of myself to help. The advantage here is that I have no pressure and am in no way cornered by time. I greet Ambrosia from Miura, Kev’Inette from Mon Coeur en Poses, Alma from L’Atelier d’Alma, Jazaar from Jazabelle Boutique and Denna from Denden Store.

 

C.: What can inspire your creativity the most?

D.: My appearance. Right from the start of Second Life, I got my hands on tons of free shapes and skins. This allowed me to change my appearance as desired. With the arrival and generalization of mesh heads, it became more complicated, but I had the chance to win a contest organized by 7 Deadly Skins which gave me the opportunity to benefit from their creations for a whole year. I currently have hundreds of ways to change my appearance on a daily basis and I don't hesitate. So I start my days by creating a new avatar from head to toe. And it is this appearance that will influence what I will do with my day. Each appearance comes with a personality and depending on where I am, I will be able to let myself be guided by my intuition and in the end I hope that certain photos will be worth publishing.

 

C.: Which is your favorite photo among all the ones you took?

D.: Another difficult question :) Depending on whether I want to highlight the time I spent on it; the idea that I had for the result obtained, the sudden inspiration, the chance of taking a beautiful photo without doing it on purpose, I would point to a different photo each time.

 

For the time it took me: www.flickr.com/photos/daikota_wind/52244300060/in/datepos...

For the initial idea and the final result: www.flickr.com/photos/daikota_wind/52380164894/in/datepos...

For sudden inspiration: www.flickr.com/photos/daikota_wind/51871460495/

To thank chance for getting it right: www.flickr.com/photos/daikota_wind/52414225906/in/datepos...

 

 

C.: As for the last question, I'd invite you to ask yourself a question and give yourself an answer.

D.: Haha! … Uh! … Little silence … You have been managing to post a new photo every day on your Flickr for more than ten years, do you think that all this will stop at some point?

I am and remain a homebody, I have developed a hobby that I like and I would like it to last a long time. Second Life is very diverse, we can live all kinds of delirium there, it goes from the age of the caves to the establishment of colonies on Mars, the real artists are the ones who create all these fabulous landscapes, these detailed objects, these parts of avatars that highlight us… As long as I can put all this together in a photo, I would like to continue my work. However, I see two limitations to this. I recently moved from Europe and I now live in Asia where I would like to change my life. Soon my husband and I will have our future house built, it could be that I will no longer be available for Second Life and therefore for Flickr. But I think it will last while we settle in. If the Internet connection is good on our island at the end of the world, I would probably come back to haunt the place again. The second uncertainty is the PRO Flickr subscription. It was offered to me for one year, but I doubt that I could renew it, which would inevitably have consequences on the information that I provide concerning the brands that I blog and would oblige me for certain photos to practice the self-censorship. This is also why I am now limiting the number of photos accumulating on Flickr by eliminating one photo for each addition. In addition, I had a lot of setbacks with Flickr this year: robot restricting the visibility of my photos for a piece of shoulder that protrudes, repeated interruptions of service for more or less long periods (reason for which my subscription has been extended by 4 months), not to mention the censorship that takes place with other artists who all end up leaving this platform. But anyway, I will take the time to warn the Flickr community of the changes that will occur in my real life and which are likely to impact my virtual existence.

 

Wishing you all the best for your new real life changes and hoping to still have you around also in the future, I thank you so much, Daikota, for opening to us through this interview and for letting us know more about the wonderful person and artist you are.

----------------------------------------

 

A new episode of NSLS will be back in two weeks time. Stay tuned!

 

ᶜˡᵃ'ˢ ᵒᵘᵗᶠⁱᵗ ᵇʸ ᵏᵃⁱᵗʰˡᵉᵉⁿ'ˢ

ʰᵃⁱʳ ᵇʸ ˢᵗᵉᵃˡᵗʰⁱᶜ

Done