Sometimes You Need a Professional

We’ve all heard the admonishment: Kids, don’t try this yourselves at home. *grin* I ignore that ALL the time when I take pictures in SL. I really am not a good photographer. That’s okay with me – I don’t have to be a good photographer. It would be NICE of course, but usually all I really care about is showing you a glimpse of my life. And for that “okay” is sufficient. Until last week.

Honour gave me a gorgeous outfit last week. She’d been shopping at Bare Rose, saw the Black Salamander Lady outfit and says she thought of me. Apparently something about the red garters, or so she said….. Excuse me a moment while I tease Honour. For someone who claims to HATE shopping, Honour spends more time shopping in one week, than I spend in a month. *grin* It’s true. I swear it’s true. But Honour has great taste. She is also friends with some of the best fashionistas in SL. And so I’ve learned to trust Honour’s fashion sense. *grin* I know, Honour, I’m killing you here. LOL.

Of course when Honour dropped the folder on me, I had to wear the outfit IMMEDIATELY. It was sensational. I loved it. Honour was shopping for a skin so I went to keep her company. She actually wasn’t shopping. She was going to stare and either talk herself into or out of that skin. If you read her blog (as you should), you already know how that ended up. She bought that skin, a drow skin called Chromatic from [][]Trap[][]. The store is located on The Twilight sim. I couldn’t resist – I bought a skin also. Considering the last time I bought a skin was over a year ago, and I think I dithered for days, finally going to Calli for advice, buying a skin in less than 20 minutes is quite remarkable for me.

So I had this sensational outfit and a new breath-taking skin. Of course I went to take a picture to show you all. Except…. drow skins are dark. I couldn’t get the lighting correct. The pictures were okay. But this time, this look, “okay” was not okay. I am fortunate to be friends with one of the best photographers (if not the best) in SL – Callipygian Christensen. Calli was logged on. I IM’d her and asked if I could hire her to take my picture. In the interests of keeping this post to a manageable length, I won’t detail how LONG it took for the 2 of us to actually have time to be logged on at the same time to do a shoot. *grin*

The difference between a professional and me. I thought, okay, yeah, we’ll go downstairs where there’s no furniture, or down to the beach, take some shots. Oh no, no, NO. One gets posed in a proper LOCATION. I love Calli. She found a sim – we were at Rustica, a wonderful furniture store in a castle (Quality Medieval and Castle Furniture). She found a window and managed to walk/talk me into the right spot and then she took pictures. I took pictures too – of us doing the shoot. But Calli – she captured exactly what I wanted to show you. The incredible package: outfit and skin.

The photos in this post are by the incomparable Callipygian Christensen. My deep thanks to you, Calli, for capturing the essence of what I feel when I put on that outfit. *hugs* You are amazing.