A Common Misconception About Virtual Photography
When a Virtual Photographer gets some kind of well deserved spotlight and recognition from inside or -more rarely- from outside the Gaming Community, sooner or later he is going to face some misplaced bitterness. Among the various and hilarious reasons behind the hate, one really stands up and sounds like:
“YOU JUST EXPLOIT THE HARD WORK OF GAME ARTISTS AND DIRECTORS FOR YOUR OWN SUCCESS / YOU PUT ZERO EFFORT IN WHAT YOU DO, YOU JUST CAPTURE WHAT’S ALREADY THERE, BEFORE YOUR EYES”
The first, easy answer to this criticism is actually the most apppropriate: It works exactly like IRL (In Real Life) photography. The work of God/physics/nature and the beauty/ugliness of our world and the people inhabiting it is the same for everyone, but only a few people become renowned photographers. That’s because those few have a special gift, a rare sensibility or a very peculiar approach to the subject matter or -maybe- they have just more experience on the field.
With Virtual Photography it’s just the same thing: it’s not the subject of the capture that can buy someone’s respect, It’s your personal contribution and the idea behind it, that sells your work.
One thing is sure: as there are many levels of quality in real life Photography, the same goes for Virtual Photography as well.
I can agree on one thing: there are tons of screenshots on the internet that seem taken by casually pressing the F12 key or the “Share” button, and those screenshot really can’t tell anything or show anything more than what you see on your TV screen during a normal gameplay session. They are not evocative, they are not inspired, they don’t break any convention. But those are the captures of people enjoying a game and sharing their experience. They are not aiming to some specific Gaming Outlet or Museum or Art Gallery. You just have to accept those screenshots for what they are and for what they represent: a declaration of love that -most probably- will go unheard.
But there are also some Virtual Photographers that actually get support and recognition and have the possibility to grow in scope and quality. For example I had the luck to be noticed by a gaming art collective called “Neoludica Project” and thanks to their help, care and drive I was able to grow up to the point of proposing myself to a Museum Of Modern Art and being accepted for an exhibition (You can find more details in my Blog and in my Bio).
This is the same moment in time in Days Gone (Playstation4, 2019), from 3 different angles and in 2 different ratios (16:9 and 21:9), intended as a study in composition. Because, you know, Virtual Photographers do studies in framing and composition just like photographers do.
The bottom line ist that some talented Virtual Photographers can actually work on a very bland and generic game, like Far Cry 5 to name one, and get some inspired and unique captures, so it’s truly a bitter statement that we get recognition exploiting other people’s work. Truth is, that big names such as Sony and Ubisoft nowadays use our screenshots to make their game or environments or characters looking more interesting than they actually are.
As a matter of fact, the best compliment I ever had for some of my pictures was: “Hey dude, I really like your work, but the in-game graphics totally don’t look like your screenshots!” and that was really the point!
We don’t exploit other people’s work. We reimagine it, we transcend it, we use it to bring our fantasies and our vision [of the game] to life.
And sometimes (sometimes) it’s totally a different vision than the game creators and that’s the real sense of the whole thing.