There I was in my home sim, minding my own business when my chief Elf rushed in holding a golden ring. I arched an eyebrow and then sighed as she hurled it on to the fire. “Remove it” she said, so I used a stick and pulled the ring from the fire and then to my amazement, elvish style writing appeared on the inside. I picked the ring up, my Chief Elf asked “What does it say?”
“One Singh to rule them all, One Singh to find them; One Singh to bring them all. and in Second Life bind them” I replied, somewhat surprised. My Chief Elf looked far from impressed. “This is a sign, I must go on an epic journey and interview ….. Strawberry Singh!”
My chief Elf remained nonplussed “Wait a minute, the serpent girl, you were talking about this serpent and a girl, I remember, you were most agitated.” I rose and collected my staff, wizard hat and cloak and made my way towards the door, meanwhile my Chief Elf was eyeing the ring “Hey, this says nothing of the sort, you’re making this all up, good grief you made this up for a corny blog title and cheesy intro didn’t you!” she shouted at me. However I was not about to be deterred and took the ring from my Chief Elf and placed it in my pocket.
Then I departed, the words of my Chief Elf ringing in my ears “Epic journey! Why don’t you just teleport! watch out for that serpent!” As soon as I was out of sight I decided an epic journey was too much hassle and teleported to Strawberry Singh’s secret hideaway, where unsurpisingly I found Strawberry Singh!
Strawberry eyed me suspiciously, but made me feel welcome, to put her at ease I asked her where it all began, what brought Strawberry (AKA Berry) Singh to Second Life:
“A friend told me about it and so I signed up whilst eating a bowl of strawberries, hence the name. 😛 ”
I’m not sure whether she’s winding me up here, one thing I have noted is that Berry is an outrageous tease and full of mischief, she smirks at me from the other side of the desk, watching the cogs in my head turn as I try and weigh this up, then I move on to the next question, when when did the photography bug bite, when did it all start?
“I have a friend, Roosevelt Dagger, who is no longer in SL but he was the first person to take professional pictures of my avatar and he put them on flickr and then taught me how to take snapshots and got me addicted to flickr. This was all back in the summer of 2007, I was still newbish and only a few months old. Here are some of the pictures he took of me back then that got me so inspired and into photography myself” :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rooseveltdagger/sets/72157600786161404/
The walls of Berry’s secret hideaway are adorned with awards and press cuttings, she has received a lot of awards and praise for her photography work, blogging and being a role model. Berry wouldn’t reveal if she had a favourite award, but does she still get that buzz when she receives praise, I wondered:
“Not gonna lie, feels pretty nice. It’s more awesome than a bag of pink cotton candy at Disneyworld. But honestly, I am humbled and honored every time I get any kind of recognition for any of the work I do inworld. To me it’s a hobby that I have fun with so to be appreciated for that it just so amazingly fulfilling.”
However with praise comes the other side of the coin, negativity, does Berry receive negative feedback, she looks down, puts her fingers under her chin and then, for some reason, laughs before replying:
“LOL GOD YES I think if you do anything and put it out in the public eye, whether you like it or not you will get some sort of negative feedback. It’s something that I’ve learned to deal with. You get people that honestly just want to try and help you with constructive criticism, which I can deal with, but then you have others that I dunno why but have decided that they just do not like you one bit because you blogged something that offended their cousin’s best friend’s boyfriend’s mother and they will forever hold it against you. I find it kind of amusing. Majority of these people usually just leave anonymous hate comments on the blog, which I never delete btw! I kind of like it, I dunno, is that twisted of me? LOL Sometimes I’ll respond to them or sometimes I’ll just leave them be but I don’t delete them as I feel that I’ve “earned” those comments. Someone took time out of their day to leave a little hateful message for me, if that doesn’t give you a little orgasm, then I dunno what will! Here’s a few of my favs“:
“Yet another classic attention seeking post by the spoilt bratty ‘Princess’ of virtual bull. When my friend pointed out this post to me mentioning the ‘anal s*x’, I thought he was joking! Sadly not. You are beyond help, it’s official.”
http://strawberrysingh.com/2013/07/08/the-haunted-meme/#comment-93053
“thats f*cking ugly and fat im sure you had to be nude virtually cuz you must be a fat ass in real life lmao”
“That is fugly lmao you writing like you miss know it all.. did you even go to school for this? provably not since you wasting people’s time with your retarded know how to’s, im pretty sure you gotta be one of those stay at home mom’s that eat bon bons all day cause this is god awful lmao”
“f*cking retarded shit jajaja you wasted all that time and energy for this”
http://strawberrysingh.com/2013/04/11/playing-with-projectors/#comment-47731
“Really do think this picture should not be on the feed. Some of the feeds like style academy are pg and I really don’t need to be consistently seeing your eyes closed ass pics its getting boring, and predictable, you used to be sweet but now sl for you it seams has got a bit unhealthy.”
http://strawberrysingh.com/2011/06/10/lust/#comment-16575
You never really can tell if people mean it when they receive comments like this, some are clearly more hurtful than others but people aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. I decide it’s best not to pry further and talking of cups of tea I decide this is a perfect time for a cup of tea. I resist the temptation to slip on the ring in my pocket, it may make me disappear for a start! The second part of the interview can wait whilst I relax for a while and check my notes.
Strawberry Singh Website: http://strawberrysingh.com/
Strawberry Singh Flickr Stream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/strawberrysingh/