Daily Archives: December 10, 2014

Our Issuu publications

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Just a reminder that we’ve published several ‘magazines’ via the Issuu format.

Earlier today, we published the latest – Naked Second Life- a replication of Greg Friedler’s project ‘Naked New York’. While I’m still pretty angry 🙂 that my posing didn’t make the cut due to the photographers oversight, I’m glad to say he’s tried to make amends by putting another photo that didn’t make the cut my way. During realisation of the ‘Naked Second Life’ project the layout changed, and Jose didn’t use the shot (below) in the published version. I’m glad to say we’ve got the opportunity to use it here now.

NSL1 motorcycle courierb

Earlier in the year we published Second Life Hello, mostly featuring the Eden Naturopolis sim and its co-owner, Brenda, as well as three guides to some of SL’s best known and loved naturist sims. You can read up on Su Casa, Eden, and Lupe’s ‘Destination Guides’ via the links.

He’s also tried to make amends by sending me his own photographs taken for the project, but not used in the end. Jose says he expects to feature in a planned second volume (and has promised he’ll include me too).

jose nsl4_001c

jose nsl5_001c

Ella

 

 

 

 

 

Naked Second Life

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The photographer Greg Friedler did a photographic project called Naked New York wherein ordinary people would pose clothed and nude for him, the photos only providing the person’s first name, profession and age.

Harry thought this was a great project, and had undertaken some photos a while ago with the intention of us replicating it. As is often the case with our projects, time and the need to cover other events catches up with us, and as a result the project never reaches fruition. So it was with Harry’s ‘Naked Second Life’ exhibition, and his current illness has stopped him from revisiting it.

In real life, Friedler’s project captured the imagination of many. We live in an age where posing naked for the camera, be it for Greg Friedler, Spencer Tunick or anyone else is not a big deal. Ordinary people like the idea of being part of some photographic art.jose nsl6_001c

I was looking through the photographic folders, and blog posts that only existed in draft form recently, and came across Harry’s (unpublished) post for the project, along with some dressed/undressed shots he’d taken of SL’s residents.

It seemed silly to allow this to simply wither on the vine, so I asked our new photographer, Jose, to revive the project and follow Greg Friedler’s concept, one Friedler would repeat in Los Angeles, London and Las Vegas.

We found an enormous number of avatars, even those who weren’t remotely naturist within SL, were more than happy to oblige and shed their clothes, just as non-naturists would for the likes of Spencer Tunick or, indeed, Friedler.

You can go directly to the Issuu published book here, and you should also be able to  download it as a pdf file. Two notable omissions from it are Jose, the photographer, ‘because I wish to include myself in a second volume’ (although he’s featured in the photo above) and yours truly because ‘oh, I forgot to paste in your photographs Ella’. Thanks, Jose! Maybe I can make the second volume too.

 

 

Ella

Warning

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warning

 

I was in world last night when I ran into another avatar who got into conversation and whom I subsequently told about SLN. He hadn’t heard about us before (do such people exist???? 😉 ) and while we were conversing dipped out to view the blog.

‘How come you don’t have a blogger warning for your blog?’, he asked. I knew what he meant. Many sites, some properly ‘adult’, some naturist, some SL bloggers and, I presume, some of a news nature, have a warning site prior to be being able to access that site. Some SL bloggers will contain such a ‘warning’ on their sites because it features boobs, covered with pasties. What????

How can you seriously blog skins, for example, without showing what nipples look like, are coloured, are shaped? Seriously, I couldn’t contemplate buying a skin through a site which is representing something common to all of us, a nipple, illustrated via two strips of electrical tape in an ‘x’ shape. I don’t know what I’m buying! Is it truly representative of the real me? Is it going to accurately represent the real me? Forget it! Note that this generally is a rule only applied to the female nipple, never a male one. Odd, given that the remainder of the breast area, an enlarged area of sub-cutaneous fat, is the real difference between the sexes, not the nipple itself, and is generally represented as being considered to be acceptable as visible.

This sorry state of affairs has gone on for generations. In photos of the female breast, from the 50s until now, it’s the nipple itself which is ‘censored’, the remainder of the breast visible. Yet nipples are common to every human being on earth.

Weird? Don’t start me!

How ridiculous are the following photos?

2014-11-23-16-44-00 conan-censoredlossano_mammariesvmanboobs

My answer was that, to me, the sight of real, much less pixellated boobs and genitals don’t really count as being ‘adult’ in theme. 50% of the world has a penis and testicles. 50% of the world has breasts and a vagina. It’s natural. It’s how we are. I don’t think such basic realities about life,about our bodies, need or deserve ‘warning’ notices. A photo of a gun, aimed at another life (human or other animal) needs a ‘warning’ sign. A blog on which someone champions gun ownership needs a ‘warning’ notice.

Unless and until wordpress enforce a ‘warning’ notice on SLN, we won’t be adding a warning sign on SLN quite simply because we acknowledge the presence of female breasts (in real or pixelated form) to be wholly natural. And we regard the depiction of human (or pixelated) male and female genitalia in the same way. They do not require a ‘warning’. They represent who we already are.

So, no, there won’t be a warning notice on the blog (and wordpress have never asked for one, give them their dues) now or ever. Indeed, were wordpress to insist on one, I imagine we’d abandon the blog and move to our own website where basic humanity may be accurately represented.

 

Ella

Weather Bomb

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I have absolutely no idea what a ‘weather bomb’ is, apart from the fact it’s ‘trending’ (Lord preserve me from social media speak!) on the UK’s mainstream media.

I can tell you that, right now, the rain is drilling off the glass, the wind howling like a banshee as this ‘weather bomb‘, probably previously known to the BBC as ‘a winter storm’, rushes in off the Atlantic.

weather bomb
I did a screen cap of the current north Atlantic weather (thanks, Nova Scotia, we owe you! 😉 ) from the earth.nullschool website, an animated depiction of the world’s weather as it is, in your neighbourhood, right now.

I’ll be honest with you. This morning the weather was cold and windy, so Mr. Keng opted to do the school run -on wheels- leaving me at home to do some Mum stuff. And the Mum stuff, this morning, involved doing the dishes in the blue/black inky light that we encounter before daylight, prior to going upstairs for a shower and…..I’m never one to miss any little opportunity to feel at one with my skin, so I was able to cast off the dressing gown and wander about -all curtains opened at this stage- as nature intended, gathering up various items of child sized superhero pyjamas for the wash basket prior to heading off for the shower. Cold? Yes it was. A sense of feeling nakedly alive in the 30 minutes before one could say it was ‘daylight’? Absolutely. Will I do it again? The Christmas lights we’ve erected on the garage have been buffeted by this ‘weather bomb’, so there’s every likelihood I would, given a chance in the morning, take a little naked trip up our step ladder to re-affix them.

Of course, it’s all about being sensible. I’m not going to be standing out there naked for the sake of it, but the winds are making things milder, so if an opportunity to ‘commune with nature’ presents itself, why not?

I may not make it to the garden wearing a scarf, wellington boots and little else but….

ella dawn nude_001b

…well, you get the picture.

Play your cards right and, well, the weather is immaterial. You can make things hot like Pierre and Judy where you don’t actually realise how cold it is…
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Bedtime for me now (at just a little past midnight), but I’m pleased to say that I can avoid much of this ‘weather bomb’ and enjoy a fair portion of my Wednesday and Thursday next to the fire, enjoying uninterrupted SL time.

More posts over the next 48 hours.

Ella

Edited to add…I really need to stop blogging very late at night 🙂 because I miss things. I mentioned wellington boots above, and they were included in the post to illustrate a brand new gift at Fab Free HQ, pink wellies!

Here’s the pic to illustrate them in use in the snow.

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