Wren Carling Parker has set up a series of photography related classes this month at The FOCUS Learning Center, on the main FOCUS Quadrangle — all free.
On Thursday, June 16th, Lord Voxel (1 am SLT) will explore “Lighting in Firestorm“. To avoid confusion, yes, Lord Voxel’s class will indeed be a 1 am SLT! ←
On Wednesday, June 22, Kitten (aka ‘Joaannna’) will examine “Details in the Landscape”. This class, also, will begin a 1 pm SLT.
And on Wednesday, June 29, Wren Carling Parker will do Part Two on Black Dragon, “The Poser”. She is offering two session of this class, one at 10 am SLT, and the other at 6 pm SLT.
All of these classes will be given in local voice, so please be sure to have your headsets/voice enabled. As a courtesy all attendees are asked to keep their voice muted when not speaking. Much as we want to hear your dog barking or that distant voice saying, “But I’m hungry!” not everyone in class may feel that way. Oh, no registration required.
Today, FRIDAY, JUNE 3, is the first Friday of this month: Dancing and live music will start at 6 pm SLT with our favorite Canadian, Maxmillion Kleene, to be follow at 7 pm SLT byDj Bray. Tonight will also mark the opening of new art at our FOCUS galleries. We encourage you to take breaks from dancing and check out our Main Gallery, FAIR (FOCUS AArtist In Residence), and the Exploratorium of Art.
And for those who have missed Maxmillion Kleene, who streams into SL live from Niagara Falls, Canada, tonight will be a good day to start hearing him sing. His repertoire ranges from old classics (CCR to Johnny Cash) to fun, newer hip stuff (Jack Johnson, Foo Fighters, Green Day, and Jason Mraz).
Also, the June issue of FOCUS Magazine, out today or tomorrow at the latests, promises to be interesting as Angela Thespian, among others, has been exploring art and photography outside of Second Life in other worlds (or grids). Expect a somewhat different issue than many past.
More later, but the June issue, due out very shortly, promises to be interesting as Angela Thespian, among others, has been exploring art and photography outside of Second Life in other worlds (or grids). Expect a somewhat different issue than many past.
Here’s a photo taken on one such alternative ‘planet’: Alternate Metaverse. There are hundreds of other grids, each reflecting the interests, skills, and orientation of their owners. It’s a big universe out there, folks! And a lot of great opportunities for both artists and photographers.
Between FAIR and A Thousand Words coffeehouse, a new and beautiful building….
Today will be a busy one at FOCUS! The winners of the monthly photo contest (Topic: “Motion”) will be announced at today’s event, starting at 11 am SLT. Mimi Carpenter will provide an hour of music to celebrate the Grand Opening of the Pamela Irelund Collection of Art in the newly opened center on the FOCUS Quadrangle. Open to all, our rich collection of art and photography has been enriched by Pamela’s generosity and eagerness to share. The impressive collection of work that Pamela has assembled is not to be missed.
Mimi Carpenter’s style is both distinctive and reassuring: balm for the soul.
Mimi Carpenter’s distinctively gentle music, both vocal and guiltar, has graced the Second Life music scene for over a decade. Her travels and experiences living in Europe (among other places) have deepened her development as a performer. She has developed an extensive song list that includes Rock, Indie, and Pop music; she sings in French, German, and English. A very eclectic person!
The winners of the monthly photo contest (Topic: “Motion”) will be announced tonight at 7 pm. Tonight’s events will start with Grace Loudon singing at 6 pm SLT.
Due to the recent violence in Uvalde, Texas, USA, and other horrific evil like it around the world, Connie Jean — who writes the Virtually Spiritual article every month in FOCUS Magazine — will then lead a meditation at 7 pm SLT.
A thought: The best way to empty the world of darkness is to create light. Let’s approach tonight in that spirit.
Human eyes have an average of 4.5 million color-sensitive ‘cone’ cells in that middle part of the back of the eyeball called the fovea (Latin for ‘small pit’).
Stop now. Try to stare straight at these words and, without glancing sideways, describe the color of something off to the side (a folder or a book cover or some other object). You can’t do it, can you? When you turn your eyes to the side, the folder is obviously yellow, the book cover is clearly green, and that flashlight is quite orange.
Did the objects become yellow, green, and orange because you looked at them, or were they yellow, green, and orange before you looked at them? We’ll leave that to philosophers.
We know that human eyes with their cones are of three types, and here’s what frequencies of electromagnetic emissions they’re sensitive to. For those who want to know the three parts of the visible color spectrum the cones in humans respond to, this should help. (Yes, there is an overlap!)
Humans are blind to ultraviolet light – or infrared light – but not all animals are. Bees and butterflies see ultraviolet areas of flowers that you and I and every living human have never seen and never will see. (I’d show you a picture of what they could see, but that would be pointless, wouldn’t it? You wouldn’t see the ultraviolet areas because you are neither a bee nor a butterfly!)
Don’t feel bad, though. At least you can see colors far better than dogs can! They only have cones sensitive to blue and yellow. See?
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So what colors do most humans see? (Remember, some are color blind, so we say “most”!) Here’s one schematic that might help and might not. If you’re curious, Google “1976 CIE Chromaticity Diagram” and prepare to be confused. It’s ok to be baffled, by the way.
So, now we know it all? Uh, sorry. Mantis shrimp have 12 different cones in their light-sensitive organ that we’ll call “eyes,” – but humans perceive colors better than they do. (Experiments!)
So, where does that leave us? Well, that’s another topic we won’t discuss today: the human brain, specifically the occipital lobe (from the Latin word for ‘back of the head’). That’s where all the incoming signals from those cones are turned into something called “color.”
Once again, time to turn this over to the philosophers to talk about the word ‘perceive.’ Bye!
Edges and movement are very closely related. Out of the corner of our eye we sense that something moved, but we don’t know what. It might be a butterfly or an arrow or a fluttering banner, but we don’t know what until we turn our eyes toward that ‘something’. And then, silouetted against the pale blue sky we see a shape that we recognize as a horse coming over the nearby hill. We don’t know what color it is because the light is ‘not right’ but we instantly know it’s a horse and not a pig or Aunt Edna or an ox cart. It’s the shape!
And what is a shape but an irregular edge? And now we get to the heart of drawing objects: reproducing the irregular edge that makes a viewer ‘see’ a horse. Our brains are filled with millions of shapes, but they all have one thing in common: edges! This is not to say that once you recognize a shape you’ll know what the object is. That round thing may be a golf ball very near you or a basketball further away. And the hint that provides a clue — almost instantly — is the motion.
Golf balls travel incredibly fast; basketballs relatively slower. What’s interesting is that seeing that golf ball coming your way is first perceived as a motion out of the corner of your eye, and then as you turn your head, you instantly think “Golf ball’. Hopefully you duck in time.
And what about that horse coming over the hill? It’ll get here eventually.
