What a Video Game Taught Me About Photography
Let me preface this by saying when it comes to photography I’m nowhere near the pro level of my peers, I own a camera and take photographs but does that make me a photographer? Probably not. However, I found myself at a point of contention when it came to a recent video game called Life is Strange.
It’s an adventure game that places you in control of Max Caulfield, an aspiring photographer and senior at Blackwell Academy.
The story gets into some heady sci-fi territory but never loses focus of Max’s greatest power—that being, she’s a photographer at heart.
As I continued playing my role of couch photographer, I found myself bang in the middle of class being lectured on the principals of photography. It’s not much but I’m fairly sure within the first ten minutes, players will walk away with a greater sense of daguerreotype and how it pertains to the selfie.
From hereon, the photography references are played fast and loose with fleeting references to aerial drones, privacy invasion, and even Robert Capa’s Falling Soldier—all subtle Easter eggs that add to the authenticity of Max’s macroscopic world.
Learning Through Environmental Storytelling
With ADD being a real problem, every name drop and photography term inevitably had me scrolling through the pages of Wikipedia, scrambling to learn more and see how it fit into the overall context of the story. The peripheral interests and passions of Max and her fellow friends foreshadow pivotal moments within the game so there was a rhyme to reason.
The desire to be one step ahead of the story had me reading up on Henri Cartier-Bresson, Diane Arbus, Jean Coctaeu’s work to solve the story before the big twist was revealed.
Did It Make Me a Better Photographer?
While I’m not going to say that Life is Strange suddenly made me an expert in photography, it did inspire me to invest more time than I would have in the learning process.
In the same way that Pokemon Snap inspired an editor to pick up a real camera, or Boyhood secretly bestows valuable knowledge about work ethic to viewers; Life is Strange sparked my desire to read up on influential photographers and the history behind our art—and that’s something I’ll still continue exploring even after the credits roll.
