I read the description in search for Otter Lake and scratched my head about it because it was a Becca Moment.
Ok so here's what it says;
This is not a rental region, so come explore the ruins, town, wooded trails, lakes, and waterfalls.
First, I should say that I was looking at the description because I was gonna blog it because the place is awesome sauce, it's really gorgeous and different, but I didn't know what they meant by the "rental region" and then it hit me. Duh Becca.
I've actually blogged that "rental regions" bug me, I just never had a succinct name like that for them, I call them "those picture places with houses mixed in" and go off to blog some other place because I'm always afraid that I'm gonna be in someone's bathtub taking a pic when they get home or something.
I sleuthed this out standing in the charming lil parking lot near Otter Lake, looking at the other places around the lake and it hit me that that region owner was saying they are not for rent, so we can come explore without fear of trespassing. Phew!
It really is charming and well laid out. There's the central lake with many points of interest around it. Check out Otter Lake even if you just want a place to sit and muse a bit, very tranquil and yet still gritty enough to make you feel the place.
From an artsy view, I'm always looking for good places to use a blur to create a tilt-shift effect. It's fun with landscapes that have some detail to feature in them and Otter Lake is literally perfect for it.
To do the tilt-shift technique is simple in theory- blur everything except the thing you want to accentuate. There's a filter in the Firestorm viewer called "miniature" that does it badly, I'll upload one here with it to show and probably something to Flickr later with a tilt-shift effect.
I also usually don't vary from shared lighting much but I found that the distant mountains and hills really popped with a couple of the older windlight settings so I had fun messing around with lighting here as well.
With so many Halloween places dominating the destinations right now, Otter Lake is a nice, chill, autumn place to hang out and take some pics while you save up Halloween Mojo for the second half of October.
Otter Lake Slurl here.
