The 5 Levels Of Virtual Photography
At a basic level, we can say that Virtual Photography (also known as Gaming-Photography or In-Game Photography) is a more complex form of screengrab.
If you are playing the Witcher III on a personal computer and accidentally press the F12 button, a screengrab of that moment will be saved in some folder on your PC. A screengrab is a lazy, basic or unintentional capture of what a PC or a TV is displaying in that very moment. Virtual Photography is the same thing, but with an intention.
There are many levels of that specific intention, and they depend on the maturity of the person behind the camera. I went through all those levels, starting from a capture wrong in all the possible ways to a capture that opened for me the doors of an actual Museum Of Modern Art.
I’m going to describe here what are the 5 levels of modern Virtual Photography according to my personal experience and what I learned from the beautiful Virtual Photography community since 2010. Don’t get me wrong, every single level has its own story and merits; this is not a ranking, these are just the 5 different ways I found myself doing Virtual Photography.
LEVEL 1 VIRTUAL PHOTOGRAPHY - THE BASICS
Virtual Photography is exactly what it sounds like: capturing the beauty and complexity of the virtual worlds of videogaming just like it’s everyday actual photography. On console, this is possible via a software called Photo Mode that actually replicates a real camera in a virtual world. On PC, if the game doesn’t sport an official Photo Mode, there are many hacks and mods that fairly mimic a Photo Mode but with best compression and often better solutions overall. Since the first Virtual Photography challenge I can recall on the then awesome NeoGAF forum (it was circa 2009), there are only 3 main rules to follow for some competent work: Free Camera, No Hud, No Cutscenes. These 3 rules ensure that the photographer breaks away from the fixed, overhead position of an in-game camera, removes every single hint on screen and goes safari capturing all the smallest and most beautiful details in the game. It is very wrong and unfair to capture non-interactable cutscenes simply because in that case camera placement, FOV, DOF, tilt and composition are decided by the Game Director and not by the virtual photographer. Under those circumstances we would have a well-timed screengrab at best, but surely not a personal and relevant capture. On a side note, post-production is generally allowed when dealing with contrast, brightness or framing. If you add external elements not present in the original game, for example you photoshop a Campbell Soup can in Super Mario 3D World, that is generally considered Game Art, not Virtual Photography, and the same goes for screenshot overlays.
A very basic capture from the game HORIZON ZERO DAWN. a 2017 Playstation4 game ported also on Playstation5 and PC
LEVEL 2 VIRTUAL PHOTOGRAPHY - ADDING SOME OPTIONS
Once a Virtual Photographer masters the Level-1 rules of engagement he should start experimenting with the options of a Photo Mode entering Level-2 but a small share of Virtual Photographers do no go beyond L1VP. The reason is easy to explain: L2VP is very time-consuming and starts being tiring, stressful and often not funny, As far as modern Photo Modes go, the options are increasingly complex and tiresome to master, that’s why many users prefer to take full frontal captures, add a color filter and post their work on social media with no added trickery. Once a virtual photographer feels ready to tackle some more complex features, these are the most common options in modern Photo Modes: 1) FOV (Field of View) which is used to create a balance of proportions and distances between the foreground and the background. 2) DOF (Depth Of Field) which helps focusing on specific subjects putting out of focus distracting elements. 3) TILT which is used to rotate the image to increase the sense of movement and direction -or- to create vertical photography. 4) COLOR FILTERS which are often unused but actually can help create very personal acts. According to my personal experience the virtual photography community usually works at L2VP, because it rewards the photographer with the best overall quality per hours of time invested.
A slightly more complex capture, with TILT, DOF and COLOR FILTERS applied, from INFAMOUS: SECOND SON, a 2014 Playstation4 exclusive
LEVEL 3 VIRTUAL PHOTOGRAPHY - ONE FOR THE GAME
Level3 Virtual Photography is L2VP but with a very distinct edge. Basicly, a L3VP screenshot is a screenshot so complex and full of visual cues that it encapsulates the story of an entire game in one frame. It is rich, it is telltale, and for sure it is not one of those full-optional L2VP screenshots we usually capture during the first few hours of a game. There’s only one way to have a nicely cooked L3VP screenshot: you have to play the game you are capturing at least 30-45 hours, and the more you play the best you can get out of it. Why, you ask me? Because only after a big chunk of time in a game you learn how the charachters walk, which one sports the best facial animation or smirk, where you can find the best landscapes or the most elaborate costumes of the game, when you can enjoy the best light of the day or which weapon has the best reload animation. Only after many, many hours you can actually learn -for example- how to match the time of the day with the specific hues of a specific location. And only when you know those subtle details, those nuances, those little secrets you can take a very special screenshot. Beware! I’m not saying a L3VP is the perfect Virtual Photography, on the contrary. Just like Goku SSJ3, L3VP it’s probably not worthy because it needs an incredible dedication and the final outcome might still be disappointing, But when it works, when you do it, that one incredible screenshot will stay forever in your best of the best collection.
This screenshot not only captures a very rare facial expression of the main protagonist of DAYS GONE, a 2019 Playstation4 game, but perfectly encapsules the spirit, the mood and the gameplay of the game in one single screenshot. It was also featured on SONY BEND social media with my great honour.
LEVEL 4 VIRTUAL PHOTOGRAPHY - INTRODUCING THE CONCEPTUAL WORK
Level3 Virtual Photography was my arrival point in 2019, but then Assassin’s Creed: Origins happened. During a normal VP session I was playing with some heavy color filtering when a bell rang in my brain and I clearly saw my next step as a virtual photographer: transcending the game itself and making something new out of it. In that very moment it was no more Assassin’s Creed, it was no more Bayek, it was no more open worlds to capture: it was design, it was marketing, it was oil painting, it was Proust’s madeleines. Going from L3VP to L4VP was transcending Virtual Photography as a specific medium with a specific intent, and using it to render the idea of other media, blending different art expressions like posters and artworks and paintings with my beloved Virtual Photography and my personal memories. It truly wasn’t better than L3VP (it was actually simpler once I figured it out) but it was new, it was fresh, it was personal and unique and most of all, it was conceptual.
While playing with the many beautiful filters of AC: Origins I felt that this one was truly reminiscent of some paintings by italian artist Canaletto. So I tried a combo of filter+composition+subject+ location that could eventually lead the viewer to remind his studies of italian 18th century Art.
LEVEL 5 VIRTUAL PHOTOGRAPHY - A FULL FLEDGED CROSSMEDIA PROJECT
Level5 Virtual Photography is the logic and final evolution of L4VP. Whereas L4VP is mostly a single shot with a single idea behind it, L5VP is a full fledged Virtual Photography gallery based on a interaction between different forms of art. It is consistent, cohesive, stylish and absolutely not random as L4VP. As an example of L5VP we can take my latest work on Ghost Of Tsushima. This is Virtual Photography used as a blank canvas to mimic and reproduce historical photography as we use to know it. For this project I took the NPCs’ of Sucker Punch wonderful act and portraied them as if I was a photoreporter sent back in time in feudal Japan. I captured virtual people in virtual environments just like they were real people of medieval Japan living their everyday life woking in the fields, cleaning horses and praying. I ripped off every single reference to the game to make my screenshots seem as real as possible. This was actually possible thanks to the fantastic work on people’s faces and costumes Sucker Punch artists’ were able to achieve. To give my gallery the best consistency and momentum possible, i used just one filter (“Tintype”), one ratio (9:16), and focused on people as much as possible. Because historical photography is made by people, dresses, hairstiles, looks, and I wanted to reproduce that specific look-and-feel in this whole project.
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