NBI: Screenshot Safari #1 (#NBI2015Safari)

As part of the Newbie Blogger Initiative, Murf has a challenge up for weekly screenshots fulfilling different themes.

This is an oldie but a goodie for the Selfie category, methinks.

Dolyak photo bombs are another great way to break routine.

The thing I love most about this screenshot is that it wasn’t intentional.

I often get some of my best shots from pure serendipity (though there is plenty of time devoted to the taking of many many screenshots before and after, that don’t make the cut.)

In this case, I’d decided that I was going to spend several hours taking screenshots of the Labyrinthine Cliffs (one of GW2’s most gorgeous scenic maps, which also has the unfortunate fate of being a temporary/seasonal map that would eventually get removed from the game) to preserve my memories of its beauty.

This in the days before first-person view, which means a lot of /sleeping and fooling around with tonics to adjust camera angles to hide one’s character to take scenic landscape screenshots.

I’d just discovered that turning into a baby dolyak with a tonic enabled the taking of some lovely water/land horizon shots, because the baby dolyak essentially disappears underwater and stays relatively invisible, being all grey and small profiled.

You just needed to get the camera angles juuuust right….

So here I was running around as a baby dolyak, making squeeing and mooing noises to myself, submarining under the waves and playing with the camera angles, when that FACE popped up and blocked off half of my screen and made googly eyes at me.

It essentially went, “Moo! Take me! Take me! Forget the pretty landscapes! I wanna picture!”

I obliged it.

Or rather, obliged myself, because I’d somehow managed to tilt my camera and my mouse to the point where I had angled back at my face and surprised myself.

Serendipitous dolyak selfie is best selfie.

NBI Writing Prompt #2: What’s the cutest critter in your MMO?