Submit Your Pictures to the Sinespace Pick of the Day Contest, and You Could Win 500 Gold!

Having launched the Sinespace Pick of the Day series on this blog, I wanted to open it up so that anybody can submit a picture of someplace in Sinespace that delights and inspires them!

If I select and run your submitted picture (on the RyanSchultz.com blog and/or the official Sinespace blog), you win a prize of 500 Gold to spend as you please on the Sinespace Shop!

Here are the rules:

  1. Pictures must have been taken by you, of a region within Sinespace. It must be a picture primarily of a region, not an avatar (although you can certainly include avatars in your picture). You may submit a picture of your own region, or of a region created by somebody else.
  2. All pictures must be of high quality, and high resolution, but no larger than 2.1 MB in size (otherwise, they will have to be resized to fit on the official Sinespace blog, and then they will then have to be reduced in quality).
  3. IMPORTANT: You must email 1) the picture to ryanschultz [at] gmail [dot] com, along with 2) your avatar name (for the photo credit), and 3) the name of the region where you took the picture. If you do not include all three items in your email, your entry will not be considered for the contest.
  4. Creative use of the built-in Snapshot tool in the Sinespace client is encouraged! Here are a few examples to give you an idea of what you can do. To start, just click on the Snapshot button, the leftmost button in the row of blue buttons along the bottom of the Sinespace client:

From there, you can then select from a wide variety of camera angles and filters, avatar poses, colourful overlays to add pop to your photo, and more!

You can also use any gestures, poses and animations from the Sinespace Shop.

Here’s a useful pro tip: if you want to take a picture without the transparent blue sit icons hovering over the chairs, have your avatar sit down somewhere, and they will all disappear! Here’s an example, a shot I took at the Localhost Connection Café and Hangout in Sinespace:

Winners will be contacted via email, and given a special code to redeem their prize of 500 Gold. Have fun and good luck!


This blogpost is sponsored by Sinespace, and was written in my role as an embedded reporter for this virtual world (more details here). 

The Joys of Second Life Photography

Among them

Image: Among Them, by Karin Verwood

In 2017, I decided to take a blogging course offered through BVuNiversity, the educational arm of the Blogger & Vlogger Network of Second Life (BVNSL for short). I was unique among the students attending, in that I was blogging about Sansar more than Second Life at the time (remember, this blog first started out in July 2017 as a blog about Sansar, launched when Sansar opened the doors to the public).

You can see the “test” Second Life blog which I set up to use for the course here. I’m no longer updating that blog; I just find it easier to have one blog (this one), where I can talk about various social VR/virtual worlds, including a section devoted to Second Life!

Anyways, a few of the weekly BVNSL classes were devoted to learning how to take good photographs in Second Life. And ever since then, I have found myself attracted to well-done SL photography, like the image at the top of this blogpost by Karin Verwood (you can see the rest of her pictures on Flickr, which is home to many talented Second Life photographers).

There are so many exceptional SL photographers that it would be impossible to list all of my favourites! Some focus on landscape or home and garden photography; others do portraits or fashion shoots; some focus on telling a story with action scenes!

If you are at all interested in Second Life photography, may I recommend you follow Wurfi on Twitter, who is a friend from both Second Life and Sansar? I have learned about so many wonderful SL photographers through his tweets.

Here are just a few recent examples of work from the many talented Second Life photographers whom I follow on Flickr. (You can click on each picture to take you directly to the Flickr page for the photo; from there, you can click on the photographer’s name under the picture to see all his or her work in chronological order.)


. you make me feel... like i'm alive again .
Crystal Gardens
Cyberpunk
Beauty is the ordinary
FGI19 Contest Entry: White As Snow
you are born to be real, not to be perfect
| { P A P P A D O } | CLOSED
Lost in the thrill of it all.
airplane mode.

The BVNSL also hosts an annual awards show, The Bloggies, where the public votes for bloggers and vloggers in various categories. Voting takes place from now until Oct. 19th, 2019, so don’t delay! The full list of categories and nominees and the link to the voting ballot is here.

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: Backdrop Cove

This is a blogpost about a different sort of freebie! Backdrop Cove offers you dozens and dozens of backdrops for all your Second Life photography needs, all for free! Just click on the sign on the tree when you arrive at the starting point:

Alas, poor 1950s striptease artist Coupon Clip is still out of a job. But she has a promising new career as a model, thanks to Backdrop Cove! Here are some shots to show you just a few of the many different backdrops available. Many backdrops have built-in poses available, or you can use your own poses. You can also rez poseballs or other objects for one hour without having to join a group!

Another very popular backdrop location in Second Life is Backdrop City. Also, the Blogger & Vlogger Network of Second Life maintains a listing of photogenic, rezzable sims.

In these pictures, Coupon Clip is wearing:

Mesh Head and Facial Animations: Maia by Akeruka (a former group gift)

Mesh Body: Freya by Belleza

Hair: Joan by KIN (old prim-based hairstyle; no longer available)

Earrings: Winter’s Pearls by FORSAKEN (an old hunt gift)

Shirt: Natalia boyfriend shirt in white by Addams (purchased using the free L$300 store credit during their 5th Anniversary Sale, which is sadly no longer available; the shirt sells for L$199 at this exact SLURL)

Jeans: Skinny jeans by Mara’s Mysteries (a Peace on Earth hunt gift from last Christmas)

Pumps: June pumps by Garbaggio (my favourite shoe store!)