 |
| Loading screen.. Basically the same as waiting to get deployed |
 |
| How the game shows night vision |
 |
| How the game show infrared goggles |
 |
| Two people dead |
 |
| Same person dead. Same person as previous photo, just different retry |
 |
| Failure menu |
 |
| Dropping into the hot zone from a chopper |
 |
| Setting a breaching charge |
 |
| A man surrendering, but still killed |
 | | | |
| Massacre | | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
This fictional project was especially close to my heart because it has to do with the military. I took pictures of game play and cinematic from two different games. The first game is Rainbow Six 3 and the next is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. I took these specific photos simply because i wanted to do a commentary on what REAL warfare is like, compared to what the game designers portray it as.
To make this project, I took photos of myself playing the same level over and over. I used manual mode on my camera, and that was especially difficult due to the fact that the lighting on the video game was constantly changing. For the other game, i watched a cinematic from a level in Modern Warfare 2. I this one, i wanted to try and get photos of things that a very close friend of mine has personally experienced in combat.
I decided to take photos of a copyrighted game because i wanted to show people that no matter what a game may say or do, it is nothing close to real warfare. I have talked to a close friend of mine and i have talked to him about warfare itself. What it is, what it is like, and how it affects someone. He told me straight up that no video game will EVER be able to show what real warfare is like. He said that there are some missions and such that are portrayed the same as it may have really happened, but it can never do it justice. He told me that the dropping from a chopper (shown in a picture above) is very similar, but it is a very dangerous procedure. Also, an obvious difference is, there is no "retry". If you fail a mission in real life, you are either killed or you are fired. You also only have ONE life in real warfare. So, i want to get across that Call of Duty and Rainbow Six will never be able to show what REAL warfare is. Warfare is truly hell and it is no joke. Anyone can play a video game about warfare, but it takes a certain type of person to be able to live and fight warfare in real life.
I don't play these types of video games, so I don't know much about this but it's interesting to learn of the discrepancy between what war is like and how video games portray war. I wonder if this discrepancy will continue into the new Call of Duty game.
ReplyDeleteThis project reminds me of some of the photographers we’ve looked at in class that photograph virtual worlds instead of the real world, such as John Rafman. It is interesting to think of a contemporary photographer as one who may mine virtual spaces for images instead of the physical world.
ReplyDeleteSince you are essentially photographing someone else’s artwork (the designer of the game), continue to think about how you are doing this without violating copyright law. How are you transforming the original content? During your presentation, I enjoyed hearing you discuss your friend’s experiences vs. the experiences within the game…perhaps you could include interviews with your friend next to the images or quotes from your friend as part of the series as a way further separate your copy from the original.