Click the above image to read a great article by Dia Lacina on in-game photography. Lacina mentions, among others, Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama to suggest that a camera is a tool, but a naturalized way of seeing. A very insightful commentary on a fringe practice in gaming that has now become mainstream. Also from Lacina, another excellent piece on the same topic, also published by Waypoint/Vice magazine almost a year before. Here's the inevitable barthesian "winter garden" moment in the new essay:
Deep in that box of old family photos, I found a four shot spread of the seasons puzzle from Secret of Mana. Behind the large black Mitsubishi television, and over top of a blue-grey silk couch with thin pale pink and lighter blue stripes there is snow outside the window. And without a date imprint, I know it’s Christmas, 1993 The photo from across the room of me seated in reverie on maroon high-pile carpet in front of a colossal, wood-paneled CRT shrine to Simon's Quest, the titular Belmont locked in the clearly doomed trajectory of a jump. They weren’t practiced photographs. Taken on various automatic compact cameras, some with embedded date stamps, flash bouncing off the glass of the television, always on Kodak Gold 400 (the foolproof workhorse of family snapshots)—they were messy, but evocative. Some capturing the reflection of our family’s golden retriever seated next to me, others with my own mother over my shoulder, her sleek black Olympus Stylus Infinity in hand. (Dia Lacina)
LINK: on game photo modes
