GTA V Experimental Work

Looking back at the work of Benoit Paille, I wanted to explore the relationship between real-world photography and video games, but decided to do this in a slightly different way. I took photos of the same game as Paille, Grand Theft Auto 5, but I instead used the game’s ‘virtual smartphone’ to capture images. I then edited these images in Lightroom, with the intention of making them look like real photographs. The aim here was to attempt to see how close to reality a virtual construct can be made to appear; how convincing an illusion a game can be. I found it fairly difficult to expand on the game’s already complex graphics, but I ensured the photos I took maximised their potential, finding shots with impressive lighting, water etc. Overall, my lightroom edits did help to make the images seem more convincing, but the shot composition was the easiest way to take impressive, realistic-looking images. Were I to approach this task again I would put even more of an emphasis on composition for this exact reason. Below can be found the original images (bottom) and the edits (top).