Barbie Fashionistas Photo Shoot

Barbie Fashionistas Photo Shoot is an online game by Mattel, where players can set up a stage, design it with props and wallpapers, and have a virtual barbie doll pose and take snapshots. Saved photos can be printed.

Apart from simulating elements of fashion studio photography (set up lights, put up a fitting background, have a model pose for the camera…), Barbie Fashionistas Photo Shoot seems to be almost a simulation of a simulation (a digital simulation of a doll, which in turn attempts to mimic the real thing). This ambiguity seems to be hinted in the title screen “pretend you’re a photographer”, where the player is reminded we are playing pretend (This however leaves us confused when at the end screen the game states “Wow you’re a fab fashion photographer!”, as if the process of pretending turned us into actual fashion photographers).

play the game online: http://www.mattel.com/games/barbie-fashionistas-photo-shoot

Paparazzi

Paparazzi for Playstation 2 (HuneX, 2005, original title: The Camera Kozou) is a photography simulation game where the player has to take pictures of models, with the possibility to request the model to look at the camera, to “adopt a charming pose”, “adopt a sexy pose” and “get a kiss on the fly”. The player/photographer can also dance, jump and wave hands to build empathy with the subject and it’s possible to move around the photo shoot location to take the best shots of the model’s performance.

While the content of the game is questionable, with much of the game’s 3D physics simulation spent on rendering the bouncing of the models’ oversized breast, the camera simulation in manual mode contains many parameters rendered directly from analogue cameras (namely flash, zoom, focus, aperture and shutter speed).