Learning to Take Pictures With Seikatsu Koba

I tell people repeatedly that I am not a photographer. I pretty convinced that my photography gene is recessive, if not completely excised from my DNA. Yet in my role as wandering hack, I often have to provide some visual support to my text. I could, of course, hire a real photographer, but that then eats into my profits. So I spend a little more time trying to get good pictures.

With the fashion pieces, it's fairly common for me to actually buy things and wear them before commenting on them. For illustration, I can either take pics of the items in the store or of me wearing them. Doubtless the latter option panders to my not-so-unconscious narcissism, but its also a good use of me as a resource - a sort of movable clothes hanger.

So to improve my skills, I asked my friend and photographer extraordinaire, Seikatsu Koba, where I could get so simple pose balls for modeling (yeah, I hear you snickering; "Oh, see, there goes Siggy wanting to be a model after all.) Instead, she gave me an afternoon of free tutoring in how to take a picture.

What she really wanted me to learn was how to angle my camera and manipulate light. And the latter was an eye-opening for me. I didn't realise that I could change the settings of the world so as to capitalize on different lighting possibilities. Using the "Environment Editor in the "World" settings, I could select from a whole list of preset lighting settings, and even manipulate within them. You do this my moving the sun!

The results of the tutorial are on my Flickr site as Seik's Tutorial. If you want to see some of the ways on which I learned how to manipulate angles and light, click the link to go take a peek.

SLebrity and Trademarking

I heard from Robustus Hax of MBC. The name SLebrity had been considered but there may be some Linden Lab involvement in the show, which may cause problems. Why? Because the word SLebrity is clearly a portmanteau of SL and celebrity, and the SL element is trademarked. There may be a case for LL to go up against MBC because of this.

I say "maybe" because you can't trademark a word, only a mark. The word slebrity (no upper case for the first two letters) exists outside of the Second Life universe. For example, on May 11th, 2006, a blog post appeared entitled SLEBRITY SPOTTING, with the words in a caps font.

So the word slebrity cannot be trademarked retrospectively, although maybe SLebrity can. I'm certainly not going to consult my real life patent attorneys on this - and those of you who have such people working for you know the cost involved! - but from what I know of past work with them, I bet slebrity is OK but SLebrity is not: The former predates Linden Lab's annoucement in 2008 about branding and the latter is obviously SL related.

I may have some challenges of my own at some stage. My name, Sigmund Leominster, is mine, and mine alone. My initials happen to be SL. My blog, SL on SL is a gray area, but I have it as SL© on SL™ because the first SL is my intials, and I can copyright these, but the second is an abbreviation for Second Life, for which I use the obligatory ™ marking.

My friend Seikatsu Koba is working on a logo for me. I think it should be fun to see what happens if his starts appearing in the Second Life press!

Building a Better Business Card

In preparation for the opportunities ahead in 2009, I decided to create a new business card. Actually, the word "new" sort of implies there was an "old," which there wasn't. So, I decided to create a business card...


Using the excellent Paint Shop Pro X software, I designed and uploaded a texture, squandering L$10 in the process.

Climbing to the roof of my house, I rezzed a box, turned it into a thin card, and added a notecard script. By the time I'd finished, I had freely distributable object that can hand out a notecard with my details. Cool, huh?

So I invited my friend, the extremely talented photographer Seikatsu Koba over to take a look. Dangerous, because Seik's as honest as she is cute - sorry, pretty! And after casting her newly bespectacled eyes over the card, she said, "Why didn't you do it landscape?"

Curses! I had no idea why I didn't, even thought in real life the world uses landscape orientation for business cards. Sometimes I really think my brain has serious holes in it somewhere.

Lucky for me, Seikatsu is somewhat sensitive to my fragile ego and she offered to take my "first draft" and work on it. And she did. Within 30 minutes she'd revamped, restyled, re cropped and reworked the whole thing. She still thought it looked a little more like an ad for a male model than a journalist - thanks to the outfit by Yelmer Pfeffer of Alphamale - but seeing as I write and get paid to cover men's fashion, I didn't want to look like Jimmy Olsen.


The final card is wonderful. It pays to have someone with a photographer's eye take a look at what you create. Thanks Seik!

Hello Herald Readers!

It just struck me that all my posts to the Second Life Herald include a simple click to get here. Folks who do this may be surprised to find that this blog is not a series of political rants, economic treatises, anti-Linden rhetoric, or pungent attacks on the mores and morals of Second Life individuals or groups.

In fact, I like to think of this blog as "the softer side of Sig." Normally I am a skeptically cynical, misanthropic curmudgeonly atheist who loves to wallow in the sheer pointlessly of life and does his very best to keep suicide at bay. After all, if life has no meaning, you either make it up yourself or throw yourself off a cliff and be done with the whole sorry affair.

However, in my less miserable moments, I like to project an image of caring and sharing; of laughter and gaiety; of wit and charm; of gentlemanly demeanor and comradely affability. In short, I want people to love me.


Here's pic from photo-whiz Seikatsu Koba that she did for me some months back. It's my "sensitive" image - Sig deep in thought and musing on some significant life event. It's maybe a tinge narcissistic too.

So, dear Herald reader, the Sig you see here is a different Sig than the one you read in the tabloids. It's a different Sig from the one you will read in SLentrepreneur, or FreeLife magazine, or anywhere else that I ply my trade. The Sig in this blog is closer to the real-life puppeteer who pulls Sig's strings.

But even "he" is different ;)

A Night with a Supermodel

I think I may have mentioned that my girlfriend is a supermodel. It's true. She is Miss Latin Dreams 2008 and has the tiara and sash to prove it. And being a supermodel, it's important that she look glamorous as often as possible. This also means I have to make an effort not to dress like a total slob because what supermodel wants to hang out with a guy who looks like a hobo. So on Monday night, we met up with ace photographer, Seikatsu Koba, who took Mony on a photoshoot. I, of course, simply stood around and watched.

At one stage, we were at Seik's studios and Mony slipped into one of her more devastatingly distracting items: the red Ritz dress from Simone. my oh my, what a distraction! Take a look at the picture below - make sure you click for full screen.



I know that in SL we are just bundles of pixels but this pic has to rank as one of the most delightful bundles of pixels in the Metaverse. I think this one goes down in my scrap book as one of my new favorites. Now all I have to do is keep fighting the guys away. Sigh. It's tough being a supermodel's companion.