“I will not wear a gown….I will not wear a gown….I (omg…I had forgot about this one) will not (and it IS the perfect color!) wear (Did you see it has a hat????….omg…it has a hat!) A GOWN!” (It is not really a gown…it is more like a long dress. It is not like a BALL gown…and anyway…if I don’t wear it now….when else will I wear it?) And that was it….I wore another gown! What can I say? I guess I am just a gown kind of girl. There are so many LOVELY gowns in SL, things that I would never have the opportunity to buy or wear in RL….and here they are…just BEGGING me to buy them….and I do.

I feel like I try to vary my wardrobe in SL. I hate the thought that I would be confined to any one “style”. That is what I love about it so much…being able to wear a ball gown one day…and jeans the next. But I have to admit…there are very few “jeans” in my wardrobe. And it is a funny thing…I read others blogs and look at their pics and feel vaguely jealous that they can throw on a pair of jeans, with a sweater, snap a shot…and look AMAZING! Of course, we all know that it is not usually that easy. There is SO much that goes on “behind the scenes” to end up with a final pic.

This week I wanted to go to Paris 1900 and take pics in my “gown” that was made for that specific time period. I had visited the area once before and it was SO pretty and had so many places in which I could imagine taking amazing pictures. But in the end…I had to chalk it up to another week in the learning curve with Kirsten’s viewer. I have come to the assumption…that not all sims are created equal! It seems like there are some sims that I can visit and get some GREAT shots in…and then there are others that seem to fight me every step of the way! If I did not know better I would SWEAR I was wearing a face light….but I DID dress me…and there was not one. No “hidden lights” in any of the clothing…nothing that was full bright that I had forgotten to tick off. So in my ignorance, I had to come to the conclusion that it must be something about the sim that fought me from taking GOOD shadow laden pics…LOL

In the end I went home….looked through the pics I had just taken…and once again, ended up throwing about half of them away. I went to my little “studio”, took a few pics….(just to prove to myself that I COULD still take a picture with shadows!) and called it a day, hoping that in the morning I would see something I liked.

I spent a lot more time this week playing around in photo editing. It is all so new to me…and I know sometimes I “overdo” it. But I am having so much fun tinkering around with all the different settings and finding out how things work and how many different looks I can come up with.  Be sure and take a look at the rest of the pics at my Flickr Photostream.

Thank god for tutorials. I often sit here and watch V making his tutorials and I am SO glad he does them. It is “regular joes” from the virtual world that share their secrets in photo editing that give me hope…perhaps…just maybe…if they can do it…I can do it too…:)

Be sure and follow my journey next week as we take on the color challenge of……WHITE! Not only do I have LOADS of white in my inventory from which to choose, but I will have a special surprise for anyone that follows V and I through TGIB….so….until next week….be challenged.

Style notes:
Hat and gown: Convoitise (It seems that she does not normally do these types of “period pieces” although I did find this same gown in black at her store, but her clothes are BEAUTIFUL!
Skin: Style by Kira
Eye tatoo makeup: Glamorize
Hair: Alli & Ali Design
Shoes and matching handbag: Baby Monkey (I wish I had taken a picture showing off these shoes. They are satin pumps in Ice blue and have roses on them that match the handbag. They were PERFECT for this outfit….and I got them on sale! Baby Monkey always has quality products at affordable prices!)
Jewelry: Secret Serenity (This too did not come out very well in the pics, but it is a really delicate “Victorian style” jewelry with a color change menu…who doesn’t LOVE a color change menu?)
Eyelashes: Redgrave