Picasso once said that every child is an artist and the trick is to stay an artist once we grow up. With its freedom from the constraints of reality and physics, Second Life® is a natural medium for art and a natural playground for our inner child. The recent Linden Endowment for the Arts installation Cica is a celebration of the art of childhood persevering into adulthood and has been explored by many SL artists.
I love the powerful composition in this picture from Ysé Ah for her blog Ysé SLiffeuse et gloodeuse. The path gives us strong leading lines that take our eyes to the stickwoman while the bike and street light add a powerful element. You can see the rule of thirds used to situation the light pole, the boldest and most prominent element in the picture.
I also love this photo from Villemo Inglewood for her blog SL Wanderer. Another path leads our eyes, this time we have the suggestion of a horizon by the ending of the path two-thirds of the way from the top. The people are placed off-center and looking into the frame just as you would in any well-composed photo. This is not simply black and white despite black and white being the only colors in the photo. In this and the other photo, the small size of the black dots give an illusion of gradations in color.
Speaking of finding whimsy in SL, I love this photo from Morgana Nagorski, owner of the Palais Orleans art gallery where she usually promotes other artists far more than she promotes herself. Morgana uses the Golden Mean to place her subject where our eyes want to see her. The tent is centered and grounds the photo. It’s curve is echoed in opposition by the tightrope. The moon is echoed by the umbrella while the small tent is echoed by the big tent and the houses are all similar. These repetitions strengthen the focus on the subject, the one element in the picture that is not repeated.
Another playful picture is this one from jojoruno. I love the dark shadows and how they form a triangle, as does her leg and the piano. The perspective, though, is what makes this so striking with her foot nearly as large as the piano itself.
I love the power of this picture from Amona Savira. The pose and near-centering of the subject give this picture a lot of visual punch. Add to that the chiaroscuro lighting with the bright neon blues in the cap and the dark, inky blues of the water and there is so much to capture your attention. It’s beautifully done.
I love this picture from Clarysa Damiano for ClaryStyle. There a bit of story in the picture. She probably cannot spoke in the house and goes outside and takes her dog with her for a bit of a walk and a smoke. I love the somewhat desaturated coloring that makes the outfit really seem part of the scene, its colors dimmed by the snow in the air.
This melancholy picture called All the Lost Souls from Annie Klavinham is simply stunning. The steep curving cliff frame the picture and the subtle darker shading suggests the horizon lost in a fog. The puppeteer’s strings form a line of three that purposefully or not remind me of the three crosses on Golgotha. Her pose suggests internal anguish and pain. It’s a heartbreaking picture that evokes emotion and imagination.
Libby Farleigh also produced a very melancholy photo. It also presents loneliness, but this is the loneliness of the dedicated artist working into the night long after all the others have left or coming in at dawn before the others arrive. This is a loneliness that couples with pride and achievement, a loneliness of choice. The lines where the floor meet the walls lose their definition with Depth of Field blurring them. This gives a suggestion of more space and of course, more loneliness. The subject is placed two-thirds of the way from the left and looks into the frame where she will move.
This photo from Bethany Heart is a fabulous group shot. I love how she places her subjects on three levels and crops a bit away from each one of them, trusting us to complete the photo. The play of light and shadow are interesting and made more so by the subjects all dressing in black and white.
This shot by Antonietta Canucci makes striking use of lighting. There’s just a hint of menace in the long, narow alley however our subject has a strong, confident almost defiant pose. The strong street lights illuminate her way and draw our eyes toward the street ahead. I love the intense colors, the rich red, the electric blue the velvety blacks.
Ilanit Orsini gives us a story in her photo, a moment of rest and respite on a outdoor walk with indoor shoes, she’s resting on a promontory overlooking the sea. Her pose suggests she is taking a break, perhaps thinking of someone or somewhere beyond the sea.
Omizukio’s picture is storybook ready.The layers of bokeh textures add a bit of stardust to the magical photo, the young elf riding high with the doves while a perfectly green world waits below.
