I’ve been organizing what I hadn’t realized is an enormous archive of
photos I’ve taken in Second Life, and am still adding too weekly and sometimes
even daily. It’s insane to discover they
number in the thousands. Yes, thousands.
I was also shocked when I checked.
Luckily I have image software in which I can view and catalogue them by date or title, size, however pretty much I need too. I am renaming them more accurately than they have been when I saved them automatically at the time, and they go back to 2009 which is the earliest photo I have though I remember taking a couple though not many before in the few months before that but I don’t seem to have those anymore, in my archive or inworld, more’s the pity as I remember distinctly taking a picture of my avatar on the second or third day in SL when I first realized I could take photos. How basic and raw I must have looked then hardly knowing a thing about how to interact or live inworld.
It’s been kind of a mixed experience, which by the way I’m still doing, a little each day as it’s so vast there’s no way I could do it all at once, evoking memories and emotions of all kinds, some good, some not so good, some ugly, some maybe I’d wish to forget but then again maybe I shouldn’t as they all happened to me and are part of me however they felt at the time so there’s a place for them too.
I also knew I’d been through a lot, and as a consequence I think learned a lot too and hopefully gained a whole lot more perspective in SL in how to live there in conjunction with RL, real life, the real world, and basically not let it get to me in the ways it has in the past when I really should’ve perhaps just shrugged more off than I did than carry it like it was more important than what it really was. I continue to live and learn but only going back through all these photographs do I realise how much and how intense it got at time.
The happy times are many, but there are also sad ones too, especially when I’ve lost people to them leaving SL usually which incidentally I’ve never done and have been here since I first ever joined in February 2008. Yes, all that time ago, though for the first maybe three months hardly spent any time here but then come the summer I started probably what I’d call my SL journey proper.
Most of my photos unsurprisingly have me as the prime subject, but they regularly include others I’ve known and the things we did, including portrait shots not just of myself like I say but also friends for their profiles or whatever reason they’d commissioned me to take them for, being I am a professional photographer and artist in SL too. I do though have a record of me, as in my avatar, throughout my time here and all the physical changes I went through and something really obvious is I’ve always had blue hair, and still do, and I remember having decided on that for some reason within my first week inworld. I’ve accumulated many hairstyles over the years but the colour remained the same in various hues of blue. I also noticed that I haven’t actually changed that much, just updated to looking less of a newbie to something a little more individual.
I’ve included just the one photo here from the thousands, which as hard to choose, but this one evoked a moment in 2010 when I really felt things were collapsing around me, a very intensely emotional time and I was writing a resignation letter, not just from my vampire clan inworld but maybe even from SL. Clearly I didn’t, though I did write the letter and think I still might have it somewhere, which has to be my next task to try some time to catalogue all my SL writings such as those for clan including vampire stuff, for my gallery also and who knows what else may be lurking there still.
There’s of course the other reason why sorting through all these photos takes time, seeing them arouses these very emotions, losses, fears, sadnesses and also good times, funny times, loving times too, of which there have been and still are many, and it’s a lot to feel and take in all those years at any one time. So, it’s best I spread it out over however long it takes.
Anyway, just thought I’d share this with you all, or anyone who even reads my blog, it’s fascinating particularly so as SL is real and it isn’t, such a strange state of being.
© Anan Eebus/ Emma Calder
Luckily I have image software in which I can view and catalogue them by date or title, size, however pretty much I need too. I am renaming them more accurately than they have been when I saved them automatically at the time, and they go back to 2009 which is the earliest photo I have though I remember taking a couple though not many before in the few months before that but I don’t seem to have those anymore, in my archive or inworld, more’s the pity as I remember distinctly taking a picture of my avatar on the second or third day in SL when I first realized I could take photos. How basic and raw I must have looked then hardly knowing a thing about how to interact or live inworld.
It’s been kind of a mixed experience, which by the way I’m still doing, a little each day as it’s so vast there’s no way I could do it all at once, evoking memories and emotions of all kinds, some good, some not so good, some ugly, some maybe I’d wish to forget but then again maybe I shouldn’t as they all happened to me and are part of me however they felt at the time so there’s a place for them too.
I also knew I’d been through a lot, and as a consequence I think learned a lot too and hopefully gained a whole lot more perspective in SL in how to live there in conjunction with RL, real life, the real world, and basically not let it get to me in the ways it has in the past when I really should’ve perhaps just shrugged more off than I did than carry it like it was more important than what it really was. I continue to live and learn but only going back through all these photographs do I realise how much and how intense it got at time.
The happy times are many, but there are also sad ones too, especially when I’ve lost people to them leaving SL usually which incidentally I’ve never done and have been here since I first ever joined in February 2008. Yes, all that time ago, though for the first maybe three months hardly spent any time here but then come the summer I started probably what I’d call my SL journey proper.
Most of my photos unsurprisingly have me as the prime subject, but they regularly include others I’ve known and the things we did, including portrait shots not just of myself like I say but also friends for their profiles or whatever reason they’d commissioned me to take them for, being I am a professional photographer and artist in SL too. I do though have a record of me, as in my avatar, throughout my time here and all the physical changes I went through and something really obvious is I’ve always had blue hair, and still do, and I remember having decided on that for some reason within my first week inworld. I’ve accumulated many hairstyles over the years but the colour remained the same in various hues of blue. I also noticed that I haven’t actually changed that much, just updated to looking less of a newbie to something a little more individual.
I’ve included just the one photo here from the thousands, which as hard to choose, but this one evoked a moment in 2010 when I really felt things were collapsing around me, a very intensely emotional time and I was writing a resignation letter, not just from my vampire clan inworld but maybe even from SL. Clearly I didn’t, though I did write the letter and think I still might have it somewhere, which has to be my next task to try some time to catalogue all my SL writings such as those for clan including vampire stuff, for my gallery also and who knows what else may be lurking there still.
There’s of course the other reason why sorting through all these photos takes time, seeing them arouses these very emotions, losses, fears, sadnesses and also good times, funny times, loving times too, of which there have been and still are many, and it’s a lot to feel and take in all those years at any one time. So, it’s best I spread it out over however long it takes.
Anyway, just thought I’d share this with you all, or anyone who even reads my blog, it’s fascinating particularly so as SL is real and it isn’t, such a strange state of being.
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