Virtual Photography

these are photos that i've taken inside video games using photo modes or screenshot buttons.

i think of this as a sort of alternate form of photography - there's still most of the same considerations as real-life photography (composition, lighting, etc, with the exception of most of the optical/lens-related considerations) but you get more precise control over the variables involved (especially in games with in-depth photo modes that let you add custom lights, move the sun, etc).

these are the games featured on this page:

Spider-Man Games

Kerbal Space Program

as with the regular art page, i'll add more to this page as i take more virtual photos!

Spider-Man Games

i like to boot up the spider-man (insomniac) games sometimes just to swing around and vibe in the city. i try to take some photos while doing it as i really adore these games' photo modes. sometimes i just take the usual spider-man swinging shots, but most of the time i'm more interested in doing street photography that doesn't involve spider-man at all.

most of the photos in this section are from Miles Morales with a few from Spider-Man 2.

Kerbal Space Program

i realise it's a bit more obscure so for the uninitiated: Kerbal Space Program is a spaceflight simulator game with very in-depth physics (not perfectly realistic by any means, but it's accurate enough that you can genuinely learn the basics of real orbital mechanics from it).

i have a bit of a weird relationship with KSP: i adore it and i have a deep desire to master it and make big wonderful voyages, but i also find it incredibly exhausting to play, and like 70% of the times i boot it up, i end up quitting after a few minutes in the Vehicle Assembly Building because i can't find the energy to build a whole ship.

nonetheless, on the rare occasion i actually play long enough to make a journey somewhere, the amazing views (thanks to some visual mods) make me feel like a child learning about space for the first time again. most of my KSP photos are more screenshot-button-spam than sophisticated photography, so there's not very many of them that i wanted to put on this page, but here are the few that made the cut!

this is from the one time i managed to make a rough but functional SSTO (Single Stage to Orbit - "stages" in rocketry are those bits of a rocket launch where parts of the rocket are ejected to lose mass on the way up to space - an SSTO is essentially a space-plane that can get to space without ejecting any mass). i was very proud of myself and took this on the way to orbit

those last two photos are from the amazing Kcalbeloh planet pack mod - i haven't played much of it but i made a voyage from Efil to Eulb and back, and Anehta's rings had my jaw on the floor so i took a ton of photos lol