Taking Inspiration - The Art of Recreation

 

The above was taken in Second Life using the Black Dragon viewer.  The image was then edited using Lightroom.

Introduction

I have a Pinterest account where I keep a collection of boards with ideas for pictures I want to create in Second Life. It is good for triggering ideas or giving me a project I can try in Second Life to practice skills.

 

The below image is from Peter Lindbergh.

 

 

I have loved doing Black and White lately, and this one caught my eye. I love the lighting and the mood of the model.

The Right Avatar

My first attempts were using my usual avatar Beth rather than creating a new avatar. This proved to be... bleurgh.

Beth has a look that lends itself to a lot of images... this was not one of them:

 

 

LeLutka, the brand of heads I buy in Second Life (an expression which would mistify those of you who do not venture into Second Life), makes several great heads. My standard for Beth is "Lilly".  

So I racked my brain, thinking about which head would work with this. I could write a series of blogs outlining the looks that are best for all the LeLutka heads, but this certainly is not the blog.

I settled on "Ora" in the end.

The Light

The light for this is a single light that is to the left of the model's perspective. This creates a distinctive shadow down the side, which is pretty lush.

 

The light is from my LumiPro. LumiPro is a piece of kit that I use all the time. I've definitely had my moneys worth out of it (The current price is around 7,000L, which is about £40 or something dollars).

I've lowered the intensity and set the light slightly lighter than "middle grey".

The Pose

The pose was created using the "Poser" function of Black Dragon. That feature is what has really helped me love Second Life photography again. It is awesome.

Final Thoughts 

I like the final image. It's by no means perfect, but I learnt a lot doing it.

 

If you want to improve your skills, it's an exercise I highly recommend.