Taking pictures does last longer; the value of intangibles

The above is a snapshot taken inworld @ Second Life's Brampton Stage by Summer Seale, who sent it to me — I receive many great photos, and this one particularly caught my attention because it somehow feels very old, like the kind of thing that ends up in your library's historical archives. (Remember those X-Files mockuments showing the original MJ12 coconspirators?) Here I am as Mini-Torse, almost looking into the camera as Pastrami Linden (as Kirby) and Zen Linden (monkesque) field WindLight from the audience —

ah, that's a part you don't see — in addition to the eager Residents who attended we had several more WindLight Team members: graphics gurus Brad & BigPapi and documentation specialist Jeremy on the sides, something which a widescreen simulated Polaroid may've captured. Here's from another Office Hour:

I tell myself sometimes, I take and share these pictures to prove to myself that the experiences contained within really happened to me. It's not to sound crazy, but to enrich others with my perspectives. One reason I've enjoyed the seeming manual drudgery of posting WindLight Q&A transcripts is because whenever I get questions about Linden Lab doing enough good communication (and I inevitably do), I can motion and show,

"Not just one Linden, but a whole Team of them appeared twice a week to engage our community! And if you missed it, here's what we discussed."

Recording history is fundamental to understand who we were, who we are, and where we're going.

And with so much happening, it's an ongoing dilemma: what to focus on? In recent times, I've been doing more photography which is zoomed in very close. It's somewhat of a challenge, as I'm accustomed to moving the camera out a long distance, tapping Ctrl-8 to stretch my view even further, and capturing big-picture views of everything rendered within a region, or even multiple regions.

Oddly, Flickr glitches transparent PNG uploads — the smaller JPG conversion exhibits some sort of brushed aluminum background parallel to the visible dimensions of the image:

Happy accidents?

I like photos showing the beginning of a beautiful friendship, or the seed that would grow into a great tree. Especially if no one really realized it then, or could be sure (it's a future with so many possibilities, how can we ever be certain?).

I wax philosophical on the merits of inworld photography. It goes far beyond screenshots, and I believe that a substantial fraction of the value of things (objects) is not just due to their physical composition, but the memories attached to them. This is more (even transcendentally) true in an online world like Second Life, where everything is 1's and 0's, yet people freak out when their avatars look ugly due to a bug, or suffer inventory loss. This, I understand. I've become bonded with my avatars and digital possessions, and that, in part, is why I keep taking pictures…

Scenes from a recent snowball fight & snowperson contest

Tagged as: General, Ideas, Pictures, Work