073 - Grand Rue

Dim Sum meows at the sneakers that walked by, barely missing her tail by a whisker.


It seems that all through out my growing-up years, I had always lived far away from school. In grade school, my sister and I rode privately hired jeepneys that took us and other school friends to and from school. In high school, we rode public jeepneys or buses  After moving to California, it still took me 1.5 hours one way to commute to the university waiting for and riding two buses and one BART train.

Unlike most people who could read while commuting, I can't. Even since I was a young child, I've had problems with motion sickness. And reading in a moving vehicle simply made it worse. So I'd either sleep or look out the window and watch the scenes go by while reflecting about one thing or another.

I don't remember exactly when it happened, only that I was still young. The bus I was riding stopped to let some people off, and I noticed a small alley which I could see far into. And I wondered where it went, who lived there, what was beyond the bend. Since then, it became almost a game. I'd look for the alleys and wooded paths that led away from the road, and each time I'd wonder where it went, what was beyond the bend or the hill. I was fascinated.

Somehow, I rarely feel that wonder in SL because we see everything from a higher vantage point. Even when we're walking. We have a map. We can move our cameras anywhere, at viewpoints that are difficult, if not impossible, to get in real life. And that wonder is no longer evoked. The curiosity is easily satisfied.

We don't have to imagine what's beyond the bend; we just go and look. And I think we lost something because of that.

model: HiHo Silvera
location: Edelweiss - Mont Saint-Michel

Technical notes

windlight:  [TOR] SUNSET Malts (modified)

Depth of Field:
View angle: 0.606
FOV: 25.6
F-number: 8.96
Foc Length: 319
Foc Time: 0.5
CoC: 10.0
Resolution: 1.0
Aspect Ratio: 1.0

Glow Settings:
Quality: 8
Iterations: 1
Strength: 0.35
Luminance: 1.0
Warmth: 0.0
Width: 1.3
Alpha: 0.25

I was going to try other windlight settings but after the one below, I crashed, so I took that as a hint from the universe to stop. I still decided to go with the more subtle lighting above.