New World Notes

Cajsa's Choices: The Vivid, Virtual Nature Photographs of Miranda Siabonne

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Miranda Siabonne recently posted “❤️” which is well-named because ❤️ describes how I felt when I saw it. I have a soft spot in my heart for clotheslines. Sure, you have to duck if you’re riding your bike on the lawn, but if you have ever taken in sheets from the line you know what fresh smells like. 

Slipping into clean sheets that have dried in the open air is an unforgettable feeling. Sure, the fabric is not as soft, but it more than makes up for it with the fresh scent. I noticed the hand-cranked clothes wringer. My sister had a new washer and dryer and still used the old fashioned one with open tubs and a wringer, though her wringer was not hand-cranked. It would have been safer if it has been.  My job was to take the clothes off the wringer while she fed them in. Feeding the wringer was no fun because you’re bound to get your fingers pinched a time or two. 

I also love the abundance of vines, bushes, and flowers and the uncut grass. This is a yard for butterflies and other insects to feed and proliferate. Restoring the world! 

For more virtual natural beauty from Miranda, click here:

New Flickr Group Showcases The Most Realistic Second Life Screenshots

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Gino Ginelli posted “Short Days and Long Nights” (above) in a brand-new Flickr group that was founded yesterday, one that seems exactly like what we need now. It’s called Realistic Second Life, Is It Possible? The advancements of Second Life, especially improvements in environment controls and PBR, there have been so many pics that may we wonder, is it Second Life or is it life? 

Avelith, the founder, writes in the group description:

Today I created a group in which I want to collect the most realistic looking pictures taken in Second Life. Portraits, staged photographs of couples, landscapes, still lifes... But all of them should be characterized by maximum realism, realistic lighting, realistic interior or exterior, realistic-looking avatars in realistic poses. Do you think this is a possible task? Let's try to trick our eyes! I'll be picky…

In just one day, the group has grown to 46 members and 125 pictures. I can’t wait to see its future. 

For more realistic Second Life, click here:

 

Cajsa's Choices: The Lushly Detailed, Animal Rich SL Images of Sara Baez

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Sara Baez, like most of the artists I feature, is someone I have never met. Still I know one thing for sure about Sara. She likes dogs. Sara is not just a dog-lover, she’s head over heels for dogs. How do I know? Dogs are in nearly every picture she takes. Often there are other animals, too, but the central theme is dogs, dogs, and more dogs. She must spend a fortune on virtual kibble.

She wrote this about her picture, “Nem todo conto de fadas precisa de um príncipe às vezes, só precisa de sapos falantes e coelhos atentos” which translates into, “Not every fairy tale needs a prince sometimes, it just needs talking frogs and attentive rabbits.:” If this is her fairy tale come true, then she is the princess. 

For more of Sara with dogs, click here:

Cajsa's Choices: In Praise of PK Singular Aesthetic for Second Life Imagery

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

PK’s could be called the power of looking away. So many of his pictures show him looking away from the camera, around corners, into the distance. Just one picture could be intriguing, but if you look at a page of him looking away as on his About Page, the effect is exponential. It makes me swoon, especially with his pop art sensibility, his fascination with the geometry created with light and shadow, his love of duotones that distill a screenshot to its essence. It is all just wonderful. .

For more from PK, click here:

BREAKING: Linden Lab Updates Second Life's Official Flickr Group to Leverage ONLY User-Made Images/Video for Future Marketing, Chair Confirms

Originally published on my Patreon

The description and rules to Linden Lab's official Flickr group for Second Life images were recently updated to emphasize that user-made images and video uploaded there may be used in future ad campaigns for Second Life:

By submitting your photos or videos (the “Submissions”) to the Second Life Official Flickr feed of Linden Research, Inc. (the “Company”), you acknowledge and agree to the following terms:

You agree to participate in the Company’s marketing campaigns program  (the “Program”). As a participant of the Program, you hereby grant to the Company a perpetual, worldwide, irrevocable, and cost-free right and license to use, distribute, or sublicense (through multiple levels), and otherwise exploit in any manner whatsoever, all or any portion of your Submissions, for the purposes of marketing, promotion, and/or outreach for and about the Second Life virtual world.

After top SL creator Bars Simpson noticed this change, I confirmed with Linden Lab head Brad Oberwager that the purpose is indeed to leverage SL user-made images for future marketing.

"It is correct that we only want to use Second Life content for future ads," Oberwager just messaged me. "And anyone who wants to submit ads, we will review and test." (Emphasis mine, as it bear emphasizing!)

This Flickr rules update, by the way, was led by SL social media doyenne Strawberry Linden.

This comes after a recent dust-up due to Linden Lab using AI/stock images and videos to A/B various messaging, in preparation for an official campaign, and community members subsequently outraged by the artificial depiction of the virtual world -- especially when there's so much user-created content out there that's far superior.  

"After talking to you about how people feel," Brad explains to me, "I had all our terms reviewed to make sure we did not violate anything if we used Second Life 'stock footage'."

That final point is important:

Favorite Photos from a Whole Huge Flickr Group Shooting Midnight in Paris... in Second Life

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

“Midnight in Paris” by Pedro may be the name of this gorgeous, exciting picture of the Eiffel Tower but it’s also the name of the Second Life sim where it was shot and of a Flickr group dedicated to the sim. I love how dynamic this picture is and it is just one of a surfeit of fantastic pics in the Midnight in Paris Flickr group. The sim is extraordinary and the pictures in the group reflect that. [To check out the sim, click here to teleport.]

For more from Paris in Second Life, click here:

 

Extraordinary SL Images by Elisha -- Including Two Photographs from Sims Inspired by Paris & Blade Runner!

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Elisha has many extraordinary photos. I found this enigmatic pic from two years ago among her most popular photos. There is something threatening about a stopped vehicle with its lights on in the dark. It could be a scene out of a Coen Brothers film. Or perhaps she is simply looking for a lost contact lens. The title, “an unreliable witness's account of last night's events,” puts it firmly in Coen Brothers territory. 

For more of Elisha’s extraordinary pics, click here:

The Official Star Trek Experience in Second Life Was Cancelled Long Ago, But SL's Cosplay Community Has Lived Long & Prospered Without It

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Editor's note: Fun fact -- CBS once planned an official Star Trek experience in Second Life, but when that didn’t happen, the SL community went where CBS had not gone before.

Eupalinos Ugajin boldly takes us where no man or thing has gone before -- the sim Japonica. But avatars have been there as well as an orange cat masquerading as a loaf of bread. 

This picture is so whimsical and completely not what I expected with its title riffing on Captain Kirk's famed “Where no one has gone before" line, so I thought I might search for more Star Trek roleplay in Second Life. (I recently saw a promo for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 and wondered how I did not know this show existed for three seasons.)

So, there’s no better place to find strange new worlds than Second Life. Let’s look. 

For more SL Trekking, click here:

Cajsa's Choices: Fun, AI-Free SL Photos by Lake Solee-VII

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Lake Solee-VII. shows the power of “less is more” in “Reviviscere.” I imagine more than one person could be brought back to life by this pic, metaphorically of course. Imagine for a moment how she could have framed this, standing against a post or a wall, a full body or three-quarter. Would it be half as interesting? Would it catch your eye or would you page down, just one more fashion pic in a stream of hundreds of new fashion pics every day. But this, this is arresting. It requires a closer look. Pictures of a woman wearing a pair of jeans are a dime a dozen, but this is sui generis. I had to stop. .

For more of Lake’s uniquely fresh vision, click here:

Cajsa's Choices: The SL-Based Imagery By "Awesome Fallen" Are Awesome Indeed

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Awesome Fallen has one of the most powerful photostreams you will find in Second Life Flickr, heavily post-processing SL screenshots into something transcendent. “On Social Media……” captures the effects social media can have on a person, tightly wound, sharp but internally vacant, with detritus flying too fast to comprehend and understand, leaving us stunned, but also hostile. It’s amazing and immediately, I knew I had to feature her work. 

For more from Awesome Fallen, click here: