DUE: March 1st
Each student will enter second life and create three stunning photographs in the virtual world. These could be portraits, landscapes or abstract, but must maintain a strong sense of design, composition and visual aesthetic. Your avatar CAN NOT be in the final images. These three images can be minimally cropped in aviary.com, but the final images must have all references to their source viewer removed. In other words, all viewer elements from your Second Life software should be cropped when taking the photo. Following this step by step tutorial should make it simple enough to not need additional software.
To do this, you will need to use your camera controls, your flying abilities and other inventive field photography techniques to get the right angle and image. Begin by selecting the view controls at the bottom of the Second Life Viewer and adjust your camera to the visual field you want. Next, determine what lighting you will need. To select your world lighting, go to World menu > Sun and select the correct time of day for your viewer. Finally, in the menu bar go to World menu > Snapshot. A new window will open. Verify that the "Save to Computer" box is checked. Click the "More >>" button to show advanced controls. Your resolution should be selected to no smaller than 1920 by 1080 (please uncheck "constrain proportions"). You may use alternate image dimensions, if required, but please use these as a minimum resolution. When changing the dimensions of the image, you may need to hit the refresh button in order to save your image. Select to save the image as JPEG. If you need further help, please consult this guide.
All three of these images should be posted to one (1) new blog entry before class, along with a brief paragraph of the student's description of their intent with the images. Please discuss how the virtual platform of Second Life affected your decisions for the content of the images you select. Reference the readings we have done. This project is not graded on a pass or fail basis, but will be considered according to the grading rubric handed out at the beginning of the semester.
This assignment will require an inventive use of search engines in world and out in order to discover new places and things to photograph. For further source material, please visit the site of virtual world artists Eva and Franco Mattes, whose project on the 13 most beautiful avatars should be seen.
UPDATE: All students should redo this project, keeping in mind the comments made in class critique. Do not feel like you need to retake images from the same places or people, but that you will take photographs in Second Life which reference the course concepts. Please have these posted to the blog before class on Thursday, March 3rd.
