It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Oct 1, 2013 | Chatter, Images, Monday Memes

No, really, I’m totally serious. It is the most wonderful time of the year.  Autumn is the time to break out the hoodies and the pumpkin spice everything, enjoy the cooler temperatures, go on long hikes through the woods looking at the leaves, and linger for hours in craft stores browsing through the fall decorations and the Halloween crafts as I dream of filling my whole house with seasonal decor.

Okay, maybe that’s just me, I might get a little carried away. I just love this season. 😀 I haven’t been keeping up with the Strawberry Singh’s weekly blog meme lately because I just couldn’t think of anything to do for a couple of previous ones, but the Autumn Challenge is irresistible!  Here are the instructions: (more…)

Wandering in Musiclandia

Sep 23, 2013 | Images, Sightseeing

Music has always been extremely important to me. A favorite band or song can have an immediate impact on my mood, it can recharge me if I’m having trouble focusing, calm me if I’m stressed, inspire me to create something, or just provide a soundtrack for my day. My husband has never connected to music like I have, he enjoys it but he’ll always choose to turn to a favorite movie to unwind and relax, I always go for my music collection. Sometimes I can’t even really explain what it is about a particular song, or a band, that moves me so much. It’s just something I feel, something that can make me burst into tears when I hear the first few notes at a concert.

I haven’t spent nearly as much time getting to know the SL music scene, though it’s always one of my goals. I do love to tour any music related builds though, from little record stores to full sim installations like Musiclandia at LEA-11. Music related builds combined with really cool visuals and opportunities for photos? Bliss… (more…)

Childhood

Sep 8, 2013 | Images, Sightseeing

I’ve been looking through the Destination Guide to plan my tourist stops lately, and found colorful blocks tossed up into the air… (more…)

Windlighting

Sep 4, 2013 | Chatter, Images, Monday Memes, Sightseeing

I was writing in my last blog post about how I need to remember to write down my windlight settings, then after I posted I saw that Strawberry Singh’s blog challenge of the week asks us what windlights we like to use! She’s psychic, I think…  I guess this is the universe adding an extra reminder for me to pay attention to what I’m doing.

Compared to many of the talented SLers who post their work on blogs and on Flickr, I am far from a master photographer. That doesn’t stop me from taking pics constantly, though, and being able to play with the atmosphere via the windlight settings is wonderful. I still tend towards a lot of Photoshop or Light Room processing (or occasionally Pixlr Express if I just want to add some instagrammy style filters), but that’s never as much fun as moving the clouds around, getting the sky just right, or changing the look of the water. For this post, as I did with the batch from my previous post, all the pics I’m including are unprocessed, uncropped, and just standing on their windlight settings alone.

I was thrilled to see that as of Sept. 1 the Calas Galadhon Park sims are open again! Could there be a better place to take some lovely landscape pics? These are some of the most beautiful places in SL, and always a great choice for photography or sightseeing. If you drop by please consider leaving a donation towards the upkeep, and to show the sim owners that we really do appreciate their work providing such a lovely group of sims for the enjoyment of everyone.

Calas Galadhon under the Greed2 preset.

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Roche

Sep 2, 2013 | Images, Sightseeing

I woke up today to the sound of a car alarm going off somewhere in the neighborhood. It was far enough away that we weren’t certain of the location, but close enough that it was extremely difficult to ignore. Eventually it stopped, I suspect either the owners finally came home or the battery gave out, but after listening to that for so long it seemed like a good idea to go somewhere quiet, peaceful, and free of car alarms.

I’ve been seeing Roche in various photo streams I follow, but I hadn’t managed to visit before. I thought I’d leave all of the shots totally unprocessed and uncropped, and just show the sim as I saw it when I was wandering around. (more…)