Photo Cafe' Lounge
~ Chat Transcript ~
17th of September, 2022“20 Questions to… Maloe Vansant!”
H.11:00 AM SLT
[The following Episode #26 will be on:
Sat, the 1st of October H.11.00 AM SLT!]
[11:07] Duraya: Hello fellow photographers and friends, welcome to our bi-weekly photo cafe!
[11:07] Duraya: I hope everyone is doing fine!
[11:07] Maloe Vansant: nervous 😉
[11:08] Duraya: Aww Maloe – I am excited as we will have our second interview with an artist today! I am happy to welcome today’s guest Maloe Vansant!
[11:08] Maloe Vansant: thank you so much
[11:08] Duraya: Thank you Maloe for accepting our invitation and sharing your art and some of your thoughts about it with us.
[11:09] Duraya: As usual we handed Maloe 10 questions so she could prepare a bit. I hope this makes it easier to face the interview in a relaxed way.
[11:09] Duraya: After the first part of the interview, we strongly encourage you to ask your own questions. This is a great opportunity to get
to know someone whose work we admire, so seize your chance!
[11:10] Duraya: Before we start Kika will introduce Maloe to us saying a few words about her Bio and her work. Will you please take the mic Kika?
[11:10] Kika Yongho: I will introduce our “guest of honour” today with the artist’s bio that you can find online in the beautiful interview with Maloe Vansant by her best friend Violet Boa! You can read in full by clicking on the following link:
“When I joined Second Life in 2007 a new world opened for me, because I never played games or joined any social network site. Second life was best of both worlds, at least for me and I am sure for many others.
After creating little Maloe, my Barbie doll, my pixel soul, I discovered the possibility of making snapshots and I started to make a graphic diary of Maloe’s journey in Second Life, showing the emotions she experienced in this pixel world. I think I succeeded in doing this by using some post processing in Photoshop.
I am not a woman of many words, I try to express myself, my feelings, my passion and probably my dark side through my pictures.” –- Maloe Vansant
[11:12] Kika Yongho: But also, Violet portraits her artist-friend Maloe with beautiful words, from which I will report you only a few lines here:
“Maloe belongs to the group of people who are strongly guided by feelings and she is blessed with ability to touch our souls with her photography.”
With skillful game between light, shadow, color and composition she creates works that appeal to us not only on the quality level, but also write stories of life and with it catch our thoughts and hearts.
As she says herself, art is not always just a beautiful picture or image of a person. In her photos we experience sorrow, pain, loneliness, death, birth, danger, joy, smile, touch, song, love story and much more.” — Violet Boa
[11:13] Kika Yongho: You can see more of Maloe’s work also on her Flickr page:
[11:16] Duraya: Let’s start, I will first present our questions. Please be patient with your own questions and give Maloe the space to share the thoughts and information she’d prepared – before I open the discussion for everyone.
[11:17] Duraya: Who are you? Define yourself in 3 words or a motto.
[11:17] Maloe Vansant: A vessel full of emotions. lil bit more than 3 words 😉
[11:18] Duraya: How does your background affect your work?
[11:18] Maloe Vansant: I can feel dark and moody sometimes, so it will show in my pictures.
[11:18] Maloe Vansant: as you will notice am not a woman of many words
[11:19] Duraya: that’s fine – you express yourself in your work 🙂
[11:19] Duraya: What motivates you to create?
[11:19] Maloe Vansant: my moods, some songs i listen to, over and over again
[11:20] Duraya: Here comes a hard one: When did you feel you could define yourself as an artist?
[11:21] Maloe Vansant: well i don’t define myself as an artist, i love to create for my own pleasure but I discovered that i can create little pictures in sl , i use a virtual world to express feelings and longings , everybody is an artist in some way , everybody who creates with their soul and passions is an artist .
[11:22] Duraya: I strongly agree.
[11:22] Duraya: Who are your biggest artistic influences?
[11:22] Maloe Vansant: most of them are photographers, Stephan Vanfleteren , Steve McCurry , Helmut Newton , Man Ray , Mapplethorpe…… i collect photobooks , also a painter as Johan Vemeer or Michael Borremans inspire me
[11:24] Duraya: Next one Maloe: Does art help you in other areas of your life?
[11:24] Maloe Vansant: if i had money enough i would hang my house full of art, pity am poor i just have a lil collection that i really enjoy to look at every day.
[11:25] Duraya: What skills do you need for your work and how do you develop them?
[11:25] Maloe Vansant: i tell you a secret, i have no skills, i just played around with the pics i take in sl . and use the simple things in photoshop.
[11:26] Maloe Vansant: its a joy to play with that
[11:26] Duraya grins – a secret you share with some for sure 😉
[11:26] Maloe Vansant: even when you have lil skills like i do
[11:26] Duraya: Show us your favourite photo of someone else, and tell us why is it so.
[11:27] Maloe Vansant: one of Amona Savira , i admired her for creating moods in a simple way with a touch of color or a shadow . She aint among us anymore but i know she will create soulful little pieces of art in that for ever world she is in now.
[11:27] Duraya: it’s intense, a beautiful shot
[11:28] Maloe Vansant: yes, and it feels strange that in a virtual world people can die, or maybe, she will live for ever here
[11:28] Duraya: How do you create a photo? Tell us about your creative process.
[11:28] Maloe Vansant: Most of the time i use simple backgrounds, because i have a feeling, but that’s just a personal feel, when there is too much going on behind it takes the attention away from the subject that’s important for me.
[11:30] Duraya: So this is the favourite photo you took?
[11:30] Duraya: Can you tell us why it’s your favourite?
[11:31] Maloe Vansant: its one of, but this is the example of a non-existing background
[11:32] Maloe Vansant: this one is a fav of mine
was hard to choose, there are a few what are close to my heart, and each one is a moment of a certain time in my life, this one too, felt i was hanging between sadness and hope.
[11:32] Duraya: I love this one
[11:32] Maloe Vansant: thank you so much
[11:33] Duraya: thank you Maloe for preparing this for us
[11:33] Maloe Vansant: the pleasure is all mine
[11:34] Duraya: I like the clear lines in your work and the intensity – at least that is what speaks to me.
[11:34] Duraya: Discussion is open for everyone now – please remember the c, q, r and done routine.
[11:34] Maloe Vansant: most of the time i take close ups
[11:36] Duraya: please take your time to answer Maloe, and a few words will be fine 😉
[11:37] Shane Spero (shanespero1111): How much time per day do you spend on your work
[11:39] Maloe Vansant: when am on track, i take 100 pics and then i search for the best one, 30 min, then i sleep over it, look back on it and the best i take to Photoshop, and work on little things like light and shadow and also colors and this takes maybe also 30 min
[11:40] Shane Spero (shanespero1111): thank you
[11:40] Melusina Parkin: SL allows us to take realistic and/or surreal pictures and you do both… What’s your opinion about the two moods? Have you a preference?
[11:41] Maloe Vansant: sometimes i try to go to as close as possible to the real looking thing, but i love the surreal too
[11:42] Maloe Vansant: i invest a lot in sl stuff, special skins, clothes, and then i start to play
[11:42] Nardis (n4rd1s): Q
[11:42] Melusina Parkin: 🙂 thanks 🙂
[11:43] Duraya: Nardis you are next on my list, please ask your question
[11:44] Nardis (n4rd1s): What do you think of AI software ? are you planning to use it in soon future?
[11:44] Maloe Vansant: ah here we are :), i was curious about midjourney too
www.midjourney.com
[11:44] Maloe Vansant: what i see from some people I am really amazed what they create but am still not there, it’s not so easy
[11:45] Maloe Vansant: i watched some work from Tutsy and ini inaka, jaw dropping
[11:46] Duraya: it’s great you bring up this topic, we are already planning a discussion on it
[11:46] Maloe Vansant: but on the other hand, if you don’t have enough skills to make it your own, i have a feel it’s not ‘art’ between brackets, for me.
[11:47] Maloe Vansant: you use words and algorithms.
[11:47] Nardis (n4rd1s): C
[11:47] Maloe Vansant: maybe you can read in flickr what ini wrote about it:
[11:47] Duraya: yes Nardis, place your comment
[11:48] Nardis (n4rd1s): I feel it as a kind of super creative filter as you can already find in Photoshop or GIMP,
[11:50] Maloe Vansant: yes, but when you add your skills and passion in it, it becomes amazing, so am a bit in doubt
[11:50] Nardis (n4rd1s): and your culture
[11:51] Duraya: I do think it’s worth to discuss it deeply and I hope you will join us for that
[11:51] Maloe Vansant: but i think i will try it too, already did but had not enough patience…and probably skills lol
[11:51] Duraya: I have a question for you too Maloe:
[11:52] Duraya: We are trying to support each other in the photo cafe – what is the best piece of advice you’d ever been given?
[11:53] Maloe Vansant: be yourself, do what you love to do, it’s a joy for yourself, even van Gogh wasn’t loved by everybody
[11:53] Duraya: that’s true
[11:53] Nardis (n4rd1s): and Courbet and…
[11:54] Maloe Vansant: yes Courbet challenged the world 😉
[11:54] Duraya: the fate of true artists?
[11:54] Nardis (n4rd1s): Gauguin is the counter example,
[11:55] Maloe Vansant: we have our favs
[11:56] Duraya: despite being liked or not – I feel being yourself is the source we need to truly create
[11:56] Maloe Vansant: yes, so true , and that’s a bit wrong with flickr, most people want the fav’s
[11:57] Shane Spero (shanespero1111): i agree 100 percent with that sentiment.
[11:57] Kika Yongho: “the 15 minutes of fame”
[11:58] Maloe Vansant: yes, we are humans we want to be admired in some way
[11:58] Duraya: I am curious Maloe: (How) has your art changed over time?
[11:59] Maloe Vansant: when i look back in my flickr , i sometimes say to myself , damm girl your earlier pics where better than what you do now
[11:59] Maloe Vansant: i have a bit of a picture block atm
[12:00] Kika Yongho: c
[12:00] Duraya: Yes Kika, please comment
[12:00] Nardis (n4rd1s): C
[12:00] Kika Yongho: I experience that too, waves of creativity on and off… Is it the same for all?
[12:01] Kika Yongho: done
[12:01] DaneAlbion: c
[12:01] Maloe Vansant: it sure is for me
[12:01] Duraya: and for me
[12:01] Kika Yongho: Alright we’re normal, thank you
[12:01] Duraya: Nardis – your turn
[12:01] Nardis (n4rd1s): same for playing music and composition
[12:02] Maloe Vansant: and writing
[12:02] Nardis (n4rd1s): who doesn’t, like faves? which musician, dancer or actor doesn’t like the applause ? why shouldn’t graphic artists like faves? (at least the ones coming from people they admire)
[12:02] Maloe Vansant: yes i agree, but people are sad when they don’t have 400 fav’s and 100 comments
[12:03] Maloe Vansant: and you know on flickr is who knows who, you fav mine and i fav yours
[12:04] Shane Spero (shanespero1111): it affects contest too. it doesn’t matter what you put out thre . it matters who you know.
[12:04] Duraya and they aren’t criteria for the value of a picture necessarily, though I admit I am happy to get favs too 😉
[12:04] Maloe Vansant: i agree with you Shane
[12:05] Duraya: Dane you are next on my list
[12:05] DaneAlbion: Re. Flickr, it can make you doubt what you are doing, some of the pictures that i have done that i like the most got very few likes from people while some of the stuff i liked less seemed more popular. i am out if step with the world.
[12:05] DaneAlbion: done
[12:06] Maloe Vansant: well i have that same feel
[12:06] Duraya: I had a fav of mine and it didn’t get many favs
[12:06] Maloe Vansant: same for me
[12:07] Kika Yongho nods “what do they understand?”
[12:07] Duraya: but when Celestial gave me one I knew I was right
[12:07] Maloe Vansant: it’s true, when people who you admire look at your work and fav , it makes you happy and proud
[12:08] Duraya: a lot
[12:08] Duraya: I will finish the official part of the interview now
[12:08] Duraya: thank you so much for being here Maloe
[12:08] Maloe Vansant: where is the deodorant? Sweating like hell now
[12:09] Duraya: LOL
[12:09] Kika Yongho: Thank you Maloe, really a pleasure 😀
[12:09] Maloe Vansant: was a pleasure to be here and meet all the people who are here
[12:14] Duraya: please join photo café group if you are interested in future discussions. Next meeting will be 1st October 2022
