Opening at 13:00 SLT on Friday June 6th, is Virtual Lens: Selected Images, 2013-2014, an exhibition of Ziki Questi’s photography captured over the two years in the title, as selected by the artist herself.

Taking place at Vita Theas’ Serena Imagine Arts Center at Wolves Land, Virtual Lens is a personal presentation for Ziki. “The images are simply ones that I particularly enjoyed as I looked back on my work since the beginning of 2013,” she explains. “While there isn’t any particular theme to the photographs as a whole, there is one grouping along the eastern shore that depicts scenes from Roche, a sim by ddsm2 Mathy, where I’ve worked with depth of field and tilt-shift techniques.”

As an admirer of Ziki’s images (she is one of two SL photographers who have had significant indirect influence on my own attempts with the viewer’s snapshot floater), I felt very privileged to have a preview of the exhibition while she was still setting things up.

The display space takes the form of a summer glade surrounded on three sides by water. A path of dry earth winds through the trees and passes a lighthouse at the water’s edge before meandering onwards – be sure to follow it under hill to ensure you see all the pieces on display.

Ziki’s photographs are displayed alongside the path, each one mounted on its own plinth and in her familiar panoramic format. Details of the location featured in each picture, and the date it was captured, can be found on the reverse side of each frame.

Taken as a whole, it’s a striking, natural environment into which, whether by accident or designs, the selected pictures fit perfectly.

Some of my favourite images are on display here; I can’t ger the hang of tilt-shift for love nor money with the snapshot floater. Ziki, however, has it down to a fine art, and the images she has selected from her time at Roche demonstrate this admirably. So much so, that when looking at some of them, it is easy to believe you’re seeing not images captured in a digital world, but rather precisely framed pictures of model miniatures. They really are that life-like.

This is a superb installation, forming something of a retrospective stretching back over the last 18 months by one of Second Life’s premier photographers, and definitely not one to be missed. And if you fancy taking one of the images on display home with you – you can; all of them are offered for sale.

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