“I’ve been photographing Morrowind for 15 years” — interview with the founder of the Morrowind Screenshots project.

I won’t get tired of saying that Morrowind is my favorite game. Incredible desert landscapes and the rumbling of Silt striders are more than just a collection of pixels and sounds for me. Even if I don’t return to it every month, it has forever been fixed in my heart in a special place.

The fact that the fire of love is still burning is largely due to the Morrowind Screenshots channel, or mwscr for short, which has been publishing the beauties of the game dear to me daily for several years. At first, I subscribed to it in Instagram, and recently moved to Telegram. But mwscr is more than an account with beautiful photos — it is a unique project where fans of the “third scrolls” can share their creativity.

When I was planning this blog, I didn’t even think that it and its creator had a huge and interesting story. I contacted Anton a-ka dehero — the author of mwscr, and asked about his creative path, and I think we had a fantastic conversation.

What makes Morrowind your favorite game?

Morrowind is about atmosphere, immersion and freedom. Other parts of The Elder Scrolls, although they have their own recognizable atmosphere and immerse themselves no less, are inferior in freedom of movement and cut some mechanics. And other role — playing games that I know of simply don’t give you a similar experience — you’re still looking at what’s happening from the outside, rather than diving into the game with your head. In terms of atmosphere, Morrowind is an unsolved mystery. The game developers were not afraid to cover most of the territory with ashes, plant giant mushrooms, invent fauna based on insects, dinosaurs and jellyfish, settle residents in petrified shells, giant mushroom cities and huge ziggurats. There are practically no formulaic fantasy elements in it, but crazy ideas look very organically together.

The culture of the red-eyed Dunmer and other races of Tamriel is beautiful, where a large number of references to world culture are mixed. The history and lore of the game are revealed reluctantly — the more interesting it is to study them. There are mysterious books scattered around the world that are not afraid to remain misunderstood, and the player is led by a serious plot full of innuendos.

I still consider the music in Morrowind to be the best in the series. It is full of bright sadness and perfectly dissolves into the atmosphere of the game, breathing a soul into everything that happens. The impression is complemented by the booming screams of the Silt striders, which resound throughout the area.

Immersion in the game is provided by the proven formula of The Elder Scrolls — “be who you want and do what you want.” Strangely enough, the static nature of the game world also works for immersion. The game lacks the physics of the surrounding world and advanced AI in the modern sense. NPCs are always more or less in the same location. If you put an object down, it will stay in place no matter what happens. Therefore, the world of the game really belongs to the player to the fullest, creating a sense of home.

And freedom is the absence of quest markers, invisible walls on the borders of the world and around cities, and levitation that works almost everywhere. The game does not lead the main character by the hand and generally treats him at first as an alien who must fight his way through difficulties. But the player is in no way limited in the means by which he will achieve his goals, so every achievement, discovery and find brings sincere joy.

How do you think the beauty of Morrowind stands up to competition with modern games? What is her strength after all these years?

Because of its strange and unique atmosphere, Morrowind looks unusual even now. The muted color scheme, balanced proportions — all this adds realism to the game’s world. The angularity of the models, caused by technical limitations, is combined with the strange angular shapes of the world itself.

The main beauty of Morrowind’s graphics is how perfectly the game conveys its atmosphere despite all the technical limitations of its time. All of this wouldn’t be shining so brightly right now if it weren’t for the enthusiasm of the game’s fans. The Morrowind Graphics Extender (MGE) and OpenMW created by them allow modern players to enjoy the beauty of the game in all its possible splendor.

Although I’m not a fan of graphics mods and all kinds of shaders, I must admit that this area is very developed, and if desired, you can make the game look no worse than modern games with advanced graphics. Perhaps this is one of the reasons for the popularity of the game years later.

Morrowind also has the most beautiful night sky in The Elder Scrolls series, and among all the games I’ve seen.

Are there any details or elements in the game that go unnoticed by most players, but which you consider key to the atmosphere?

Such an element can be called the ubiquitous fog that hides the loading of locations. It is also called Fog of War. This is not to say that players don’t notice it, but many may not realize how important it is to the atmosphere of the game.

The need for fog grew among developers due to technical limitations, because only a few cells of the game world can be loaded at the same time, and the old machines simply could not pull out a long drawing range. This is not uncommon for older games, but, for example, in Gothic, released at the same time as Morrowind, the problem of drawing long-range plans is largely solved. And in the following parts of The Elder Scrolls, this task was also solved, which, of course, is due to the increased performance of game systems.

But the developers of Morrowind went the other way, and as a result, the fog turned into a virtue of the game. It divides the picture into plans: far, medium, near, envelops the entire surrounding space, making the search for the right place more interesting, and the journey itself more mysterious. The very change of plans as you travel is fascinating, as strange shapes of trees, mushrooms, stones, cities and ruins appear out of the fog and disappear into it.

Many players are trying to fix the situation with modifications: greatly increase the drawing range, add a Distant Land to the game. But this completely spoils the whole atmosphere of the game: the background becomes too detailed, and the mystery disappears. Of course, it’s interesting to see the Red Mountain or Vivec from afar with the moon hovering over it, but there are much more disadvantages in this.

Do you know how much time you have already spent in the game?

I can’t even imagine. But I can answer this way: I’ve been in the game since I first met it and to this day. And it’s not that I play it all the time — it’s not like that. Rather, it is that a piece of this world has remained in the soul forever.

How has your perception of Morrowind changed since the first play? Do you discover anything new in the game years later?

I really regret that I can’t erase my memory and experience the same excitement of the first Morrowind playthroughs again. Knowing the technical structure of the game can’t be thrown away either — it makes everything a little more prosaic. But searching for screenshots for the channel still allows you to discover unusual things both in thoroughly familiar locations and in new corners of the game world.

And human memory is imperfect. Even if you’ve been somewhere before, after a while you can experience the feelings of the discoverer again.

How do you feel when you return to familiar locations after many years? How does it feel to explore them again?

Imagine that all your life you have been looking at the world through a small window covered with a pixel grid, and then suddenly you went outside. This is exactly the feeling I had from the first visits to locations in high resolution, with anti-aliasing and the maximum drawing range turned out years after the first passage.

Now high-quality graphics have become more familiar, but the joy and nostalgia of visiting your favorite locations always remains.

If you had the opportunity to change or improve something in Morrowind, what would it be and why?

Here you can separate the game engine from the game world itself. There are things that can be improved and fixedin the engine, just go to the Issues section of the OpenMW repository to make sure of this, but I would not improve anything in the game world. I don’t think Morrowind is perfect in everything, but all of its flaws are inseparable from its virtues and are part of a shared love of the game.

Which walkthrough did you start taking screenshots on? What prompted you to take virtual photography in the first place?

A CD with a pencil mark Morrowind came to me quite by accident in 2003, among a stack of other discs. At first, the loading screens gave the impression that this was a game about fighting monsters. I already wanted to press “Exit”, but there was something in the main musical theme.… At that time, I still did not know about the existence of the RPG genre, and, naturally, from the very first play, the game completely captured my mind and turned all ideas about what computer games are like. I can’t remember what was in the first screenshots, but there was definitely the back of a Breton class “Battlemage” with his hair pulled back in a ponytail.

With the Tribunal and Bloodmoon addons and the opening of the TES Construction Set, it became clear that games can be supplemented, and with your own hands. I started making mods with the expansion of game regions, the addition of settlements, and studied how existing regions and settlements are made. At this time, the first understanding came of how fragile the atmosphere of the game is and how to act carefully to preserve it.

In 2009, I needed to make a short article with a retrospective of my unfinished addon, and screenshots of locations became illustrations for this article. This was the first experience of purposefully photographing the Morrowind game world for subsequent publication. In the same year, I opened a VK channel dedicated to Jeremy Soule, the author of music from the numbered parts of The Elder Scrolls. Later, the first subscribers of Morrowind Screenshots came from there.

At one time, it seemed that with the release of the next parts of the scrolls — Oblivion, and then Skyrim, Morrowind would lose its relevance, but its inviolability only grew. I think the authors of the OpenMW project agree with me in this assessment, who have done a phenomenal job by rewriting the Morrowind engine completely from scratch, providing it with better performance, high-resolution support, anti-aliasing, excellent water effect, and correcting some texture and lighting issues. The engine continues to improve, for example, recently the fog effect has become even more picturesque.

In 2016, when OpenMW had already acquired the status of a fully playable engine, I wanted to try to play the entire game on it. During the passage, I admired how carefully the new engine recreates all the graphical features of Morrowind. With minor visual improvements, the atmosphere of the game was not only intact, but also sparkled with new shades. My hand reached for the PrintScreen button to capture this beauty. Later, I found out that this is called virtual photography.

At first, I was completely sure that someone on Instagram had already noticed how great the game looked now. I went to look for a channel with similar screenshots there, but I couldn’t find anything. As in the case of the Jeremy Soul channel, I had to create such a channel myself. I chose a simple name — Morrowind Screenshots, abbreviated as mwscr.

From the very beginning, I made it a rule not to use mods other than official addons and mods that make shooting easier, not to apply color filters to screenshots, as was fashionable on Instagram at the time, and to hide the interface elements when shooting. Everything is done to convey as accurately as possible the atmosphere that I remembered and fell in love with the first time I played the game.

Almost immediately, my screenshots began to resonate with subscribers. It turned out that this approach is also close to other people. Over time, the number of subscribers grew, and the channel’s branches appeared on YouTube, VK, and Telegram. Recently, the project has received its own website.

Which locations in the game inspire you the most to create screenshots?

At first, I wanted to capture the most picturesque areas and settlements: Ascadian Islands, Bitter Coast, Seyda Neen, Balmora, Vivek, Ald’ruhn, Sadrith Mora, the villages of the Dunmer, the main settlements of the Great Houses, the ruins of the Dwemer, Daedric sanctuaries…

The spaces of Ashland and other areas in the north and northeast seemed more boring at first, the caves were not very photogenic. But over time, every corner of the game has opened up in a new way. Sometimes the simplest shapes and objects take on a special look in the right light and angle. Beauty can be found absolutely everywhere.

At the same time, Morrowind does not strive to be beautiful in everything. His beauty is hidden and often does not catch the eye. If viewed from the wrong angle, textures may look ugly, the lighting may be flat, and the space may be quite empty. But when you find the right moment and point to shoot, it’s fascinating.

How do you approach taking screenshots? Do you have any special techniques or ideas that help convey the atmosphere of Morrowind? Maybe a special angle or composition?

Screenshots on the channel were always posted once a day. It is absolutely impossible to stumble upon suitable shots every day during the game, so you have to look for them specifically. As a rule, I start the game, enter several console commands to make shooting easier, and begin to travel the world chaotically, trying to find a new angle, to take a fresh look at the familiar.

The main character cannot sit down, lie down, or lean against a wall, which is accessible to a photographer in the real world, so collisions with the surrounding space are disabled for the duration of shooting. The player cannot move slowly enough to accurately set the angle, so you have to reduce his speed to zero. When photographing, there is no time to be distracted by battles (unless, of course, it concerns shooting battles), so the aggressiveness of all creatures is turned to a minimum, which works as a kind of disguise when photographing wildlife.

In order to capture more objects in the frame or, conversely, to make distant objects appear closer, it is convenient to use the Field of View setting. But it’s better not to overdo it, so that the game world continues to look familiar and natural. You can also change the View Distance in the settings, and with it the density of the fog, in order to further separate or bring the far and near plans closer.

Working with lighting and weather is important. If necessary, you can highlight the foreground with a torch or lamp. In the exterior, sometimes you have to change the time of day or wait for the right weather to make the scene look better. And sometimes the lighting and weather come together in a random unique combination that you want to capture on its own.

When choosing an angle, the compositional technique of balancing the big with the small works great. Point sources of light or some silhouette in the distance often help to balance the frame. If you need a dynamic shot, you can use the distant perspective. And if you need to perfectly balance the composition when other techniques don’t work, then symmetry is fine. In general, the choice of angle is intuitive.

The most important technique in preparing material for the channel is the selection of shots. You need to constantly try different camera angles and press the shooting button as often as possible. Then it’s better to let the frames cool down a bit so that you can look at them with a fresh look later. If I look at a frame and I get the feeling “there’s something in it,” it goes to work, even if it’s hard for me to explain what exactly it is. Of the 150 screenshots taken in one shooting session, about 30 will end up in drafts, and only 5 of them will be published.

As you can see, the shooting technique involves working with a console, which is not very compatible with fair gameplay. And although I generally avoid staged screenshots or situations that are unlikely or impossible in a real game, there is still a lack of real gameplay in my shots. Not the shots are mostly static, and there is clearly room for development.

Do you have any favorite moments in the game that you would particularly like to capture in screenshots?

In some of my screenshots, I tried to convey the feeling of visiting iconic places for the first time, meeting iconic characters. From Jiub, who wakes up the main character in the hold of an Imperial ship, to the ghost of Azura, who gives Nerevarine a ring at the end of the main quest. From the Ministry of Truth, majestically looming over the Temple Quarter of Vivek, to Skaal Village, where the main character gets only in the Bloodmoon expansion.

There were also experiments with video sketches. For example, “Travel from Seyda Neen to Balmora” conveys my impressions of my first trip to the area of the Askadian Islands at the very beginning of the game.

A lot of screenshots have been taken, but even more places, situations and sensations are not covered. It seems that you can shoot endlessly.

Do you photograph other games?

Sometimes yes, but only as a simple player. To seriously photograph a game, you need the feeling that you can convey something special with your shots. It will also be useful to understand the technical aspects of the game. Only Morrowind is close to me in this regard.

When did you get the idea to create the mwscr website?

The Morrowind Screenshots website appeared in 2024, much later than the screenshot channel itself appeared. Over the course of the channel’s existence, subscribers have repeatedly made it clear that these screenshots are valuable to them, sometimes asking to share the originals. Sometimes I also had to look for old footage to make a selection, or check which footage already exists in a certain location so as not to repeat myself too much. But since 2016, a large catalog of screenshots has accumulated, where it has become difficult to search for something.

The idea came up to make an online catalog of all posts on the channel in the style of the Morrowind interface. That’s how this website appeared. It is not linked to any social network, although it collects reactions to posts from them. In addition to the posts, it has a section with drafts where screenshots live before publication, a trash can where rejected drafts end up, a page with project participants, and a help about the project in the style of a dialog box from the game. The site is still young and will gradually improve.

My special pride is the interactive map of Vvardenfell, which you can click on and view screenshots from specific locations. Unfortunately, many of the old posts are not yet marked with locations, but anyone can use the button on the site to suggest where the corresponding frame could have been shot.

What do you want to convey to your subscribers through Morrowind screenshots? Does your content have a mission or purpose?

The Morrowind Screenshots channel explores one side of why this game is still with us. It celebrates the visual aesthetics of Morrowind, shows how beautiful his game world is even years later. The age of the game does not affect anything, and the pursuit of the most modern, sophisticated, hyper-realistic graphics is worthless if there is no soul and taste in it. Morrowind has both. This is a wonderful, sometimes harsh virtual world that you can simply admire, like a Japanese admiring Mount Fuji.

Computer games have long deserved to be treated as another kind of art, perhaps more expressive than any other kind of art. In one form or another, they contain manifestations of cinema, music, painting, literature, architecture. I think classic games that have passed the test of time should stay with us, just like other classic works. Morrowind is one of these games. “I want people to remember, rediscover, play, be nostalgic and admired of it, even if they are far from computer games. It deserves to be treated like this.

Another small goal is to contribute to the popularity of the OpenMW engine, which is used for almost all screenshots. This is a great example of what people are capable of, united by a common love for the classic game.

How does the Morrowind community react to your work? Is there any feedback that inspires you to continue?

I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the fact that taking screenshots makes someone happy. But, apparently, it is. Subscribers often write thanks for individual shots and for the channel as a whole, saying that this is the best channel in the world, and asking me not to stop doing it. Other channels are sharing my screenshots. Jokes and memes are born in the comments to posts. There are also frequent messages from the category “To hell with it, I’m going to install Morrowind again”. If you think about the goals of the project, at such moments it achieves its goal. The most unusual recognition is when digital artists redraw screenshots from the channel, turning them into paintings. There are several posts with such works.

Of course, a lot of that love has to do with what a great Morrowind game it is. The channel only conveys the beauty that exists without it. But the support of subscribers, without any doubt, plays a big role in the fact that the project continues to exist and develop.

Some subscribers complain about the lack of mods. And if graphic mods in principle fall out of the concept of the project, I generally do not completely reject content mods. For example, many people ask to take pictures of Tamriel Rebuild. Exceptions may be made for individual projects in the future.

How do new authors appear on the staff?

Although the channel was originally an author’s channel, there are people who want to share their work within it. I am all for having as many authors in the project as possible. It’s always interesting to see a new perspective on familiar things. But it is important that the channel keeps its face, so all the works of other authors are selected in the same way as my own.

There is a complete guidefor those who want to offer their work. But not everyone who wanted to take screenshots for the channel was able to overcome the technical barrier and editing. Sometimes very interesting works are sent, but they are not suitable because they were shot in JPEG or without screen smoothing. In other cases, the work is technically suitable, but simply does not stand out. If you remember how many of my screenshots I threw into the trash during the entire existence of the channel, other people’s work is rejected without much regret.

Now there are only a few people whose work has been published on the channel. But I’m always open to new authors. You can send your work in different ways — by email or via GitHub. There is even a Telegram bot that allows you to send screenshots directly to project’s drafts. He goes online about once an hour, so he doesn’t respond immediately.

I hope you have caught at least some of the love invested in Anton’s work. I would like to thank him once again for his work. All the photos in the blog are taken from the Morrowind Screenshots website. I strongly recommend that you familiarize yourself, this is only a small part of the beauty that is hidden in it.