community

Russian in-game photography community

Konstantin Remizov has kindly offered a glimpse into the Russian community of in-game photographers that he is part of, existing in its current form since 2016: https://vk.com/ingameph

[Notable projects:]

– a collective take on using the famous “Hall of mirrors” glitch for aesthetic purposes: https://vk.com/wall-122046911_1795

– a recontextualization of Daido Moriyama’s work and methods in the gamespace of Driv3r: https://vk.com/wall-122046911_1508

– an essay on parrallels between in-game photography and the works of Thomas Ruff and Jeff Wall (yup, on russian): https://vk.com/wall-122046911_1548

From time to time we also post notable works from outside the community and translate important texts (or even write our own, as evidenced above). But mostly, of course, the content of the group is constituted by the good old-fashioned thermite art, to borrow Manny Farber’s term – a constant flow of surreal experiences and deliberate deconstructions.

Unlike other communities of in-game photography, this stands out as having a very artistic sense and strongly connected with photographic history and traditions.

game photography on tumblr

screenshot by simssries – simssries.tumblr.com

a selection of tumblr pages about in-game photography:

In-game photo mode in Euro Truck Simulator 2

The truck simulation game Euro Truck Simulator 2 (ETS2, SCS Software 2012) is interesting with regard to in-game photography because it does not force the user to push the screenshot button on the keyboard in order to take a picture instead it features an in-game photo mode. This feature was introduced in update 1.12 and works like a photo studio to go so that users can take crisp snapshots of their trucks wherever they are in the game world. In the best tradition of car photography they take location, lighting, setting, interior or exterior details, etc. into account for the right composition. Users can upload and share their photos on the game’s World of Trucks which partly functions like a flickr for ETS2 players.

The photo mode interface in ETS2.

The in-game photo mode interface in ETS2.

To get the right look the interface of the in-game photo mode allows to tilt, pan, and roll the camera. The player can move the point of view to get the right composition. Particularly interesting is that one can change the field of view (FOV), the depth of field (DOP), as well as the focus which adds essential photographic features to the screenshot.

Changing the FOV corresponds to changing the focal length with a zoom lens or to changing prime lenses of different focal lengths. Changing the DOP corresponds to changing the aperture of a camera which allows for a blurry background effect in case the the DOP is chosen to be rather narrow around the focus area. Eventually, users can use where to place their focus.

Apart from this the mode also allows for some configurations which are normally part of the photographic post-processing. As such the user can choose to change the color balance of their image as well as the saturation.

And, yes, that’s my truck in the second photo!

Landscape photographers of Los Santos and Blaine County

by Daniel Tudyka on Flickr

Landscape photographers of Los Santos and Blaine County 

flickr group: www.flickr.com/groups/landscapesoflossantos/

facebook page: www.facebook.com/groups/521081951315522/?fref=ts

this is a community of people with a strong photographic interest in the images taken from GTA V. the group descritption reads:

A home for photographs taken by photographers in Grand Theft Auto V. GTA V has so many opportunities for landscape photography in all weathers and times of day that it seems like this is a good idea.

Please try to download your images at socialclub.rockstargames.com/games/gtav/snapmatic/ and then work them up in Photoshop or your favorite editor before posting them here in all their glory.

Please keep this to landscape ONLY and the group is marked as ‘safe’ so no sexual or violent images please. No shots featuring cars and trucks predominantly. This group is seriously just for LANDSCAPE shots. Thanks!

[…]

Here are the rules. No ‘selfies’. No crotch shots. No dead animals. No shootings or killings. There are plenty of places for those!

This is a place for landscape pictures only. They can be rural or urban.

The ideal is that people will grab a screenshot, take it into Photoshop (or your favourite editor), do their best to make it interesting/beautiful/easily mistaken for reality and then upload it here. So post processing is important though not as important as location, time of day, weather and composition considerations.