I won.

Congratulations to the Windlight Magazine & St. John (Riel Estates) Photo Challenge winners! They are:

1st place: Lelani Carver
2nd Place: JamieWolf
3rd Place: Sugar Vegas

Via: Windlight Magazine: Mardi Gras Photo Challenge Winners

Yes, it’s very dark. The full size one at Flickr shows up better.

I was shocked when I got the email from Johannes1977, the Windlight Magazine publisher. I thought I might have a chance at third place or honorable mention; there were several other photographers who chose that tomb as their subject or as backdrop to a fashion shot. But that was the first one I posted, and of the two I took, it was the one that had a particular glint on the hanging golden skulls and the glowing snake eyes, because I shot using a Windlight setting for an SL day (not fixed day) and the sun was setting. That was the one, and did not even crop it or alter it in any way.

First, because it’s WINDLIGHT, and although the use of filters during shooting, and post-processing was allowed, I was pleased by that particular, ephemeral effect. Second, I could have cropped it but in the end decided against that and posted it unedited and uncropped. Apparently, my comment to that effect impressed the judges, according to what Johannes (and also Gabi) said. They were both VERY complimentary and I was blushing a lot. Yikes.

Which makes THIS particularly funny:

I, uh, may have been a little too enthusiastic when posting public relations announcements as a favor for the St John sim owner, Gabrielle Riel. I sent an apology to the Second Life Official group admin but have yet to hear back.

Meanwhile the St John floats are rolling, although there were extremely frustrating tech problems at first. It didn’t help that there were a sim full of us listening to music and dancing while Gabi and Eve Whiterose sorted it out. Earlier in the day, she was forced to close the sim for a few hours while dealing with that and other stuff.

I took a lot of pictures at both Flickr and my SL profile. I also danced, and at one point may have accidentally clicked on something on my float that made it leap forward just as Gabi was working on fixing it. So I ran and hid under the cakes table.

Fortunately, I was very small. I stayed quiet and licked frosting off my paws when I thought nobody was looking.

Two other Dinkies kitties from St John showed up and D’OH, we all bought the same outfit; AlisonLockheart and cupcakesnatcher danced along with me. Later, I sent a snapshot to the maker of the outfit, Clover Dezno.

Then later, when all the floats were out and rolling, I spotted a new one that looked somewhat familiar.

Yes, it’s the Tomb of the Wulfenbachs, from my old Steelhead acquaintance Baron KlausWulfenbach Outlander. The detail on the top of his famous airship was remarkable. There are 3 dancing poses. It was nice seeing the Baron when he showed up later (which fortunately was after Edward Pearse left; they were wearing the same Baron Samedi outfit, which would have been awkwerrrrrd).

Anyway, when you look inside the tomb, you see an image of the Baron and Baronin. That tomb does get around – in fact, it’s driving itself around St John right now until Wednesday. The Baronin is wearing a snake instead of letting it crawl around on the ground as shown in my (modest cough) award-winning photo.

Which REALLY made me laugh, because on my float, I ALSO inserted myself into art.

There’s a story behind this. A few weeks ago, I attended an art exhibition in Second Life, supporting a friend’s DJ set. It was in an historic roleplay sim popular with Europeans, full of beautiful buildings with elegant decor (and at least one very high-fashion attendee). The featured artist asked me if I liked any of her pieces, which were all pictures of her in costume using some other well-known artist’s work as a backdrop. I did like one in particular, and said so.

She said “Good. That will be $L400, please.”

It might have been more, I can’t remember.

Not wishing to look like a piker (and a culturally deficient American) in front of my friend, I paid up, and mentioned that I also made products with artistic textures (the mesh screens). I did like her work, you see, and it was not an exorbitant amount. It was just a strong-armory amount.

“Oh, show me one, I will put the texture for the art piece on it for you.” That seemed like a better deal, so at first I passed one to her that was mod, no transfer as they normally are. She liked what it did and I think she ended up buying more kits from the maker, but then she said “Pass me a mod one that I can transfer back to you.”

Okay, lady, here you go… and she passes it back to me with her art texture on it, and it’s no mod, no copy. My object is now no mod, no copy. I probably handed it to her as no copy to prevent it from getting out full perm and protect the original maker, so I’m hoist on an artistic petard of my own making, I guess.

What a good joke on somebody (probably me). So that’s why inserting myself into art at the last minute to decorate my rather dull float made me laugh, and the Baron’s tomb made me laugh, too.