Is "Virtual Photography" really Photography?

 "Subjective." Is quite possibly the best way in which to describe Art as, and of course if you were to mention or ask someone the following question, "What is art?" Well the answers would be returned as nothing more than hypothesis - why might that be? Well anything really can be classed as art, from an object placed in a room or a gallery that gets minds talking, to a piece of composed music to get the brain and moods active or an emotion to respond and come out, all the way to a photograph that reminds us of a time or a place or a historical moment. Really though there is no answer to what art is, apart from everything is art. But what happens if you are a photographer and you delve into something else? Yes that is correct, my main style of photography is landscape photography, but then again do you have to visit a location or a place to take fantastic photographs? In the minds of most people and other landscape photographers the answer to getting a good landscape photo is to visit a certain location or place at a certain time in order to get that perfect shot, but that is something that is rather wrong. You see landscapes can exist in many places, okay taking a walk through a city that is full of concrete and you will see various elements of landscapes - they might not seem obvious at first but they are certainly there and exist. And yet somehow a lot of photographers tend to forget that landscapes can be found from the comfort of your own home. Sounds strange at first but it really is not. Remember when The UK found itself in the first Covid Lockdown, we were told to simply, 

Stay at home and protect the NHS

For various Draconian laws had been bought in with "Orwellian emergency powers." and for a lot of landscape photographers - the ability to go out and about was curtailed in a way never seen or observed before, it was alien. Even for someone who takes landscape photography. But then I started noticing on YouTube various well known photographers who changed the way they captured content, and below are a few examples of this new kind of photography. But is it really that new? 

Even photographer "Tim Day." A photographer from The UK - who prefers to capture waterfalls with just a smartphone delved into the world of photography from a different world, from a virtual world. Whilst his video of GTA 5 Landscape Photography is no longer on his channel, it certainly did open my eyes and got me to ask the following question, 

Is Virtual Photography in video games really Photography?

And when you delve into the world of virtual photography you eventually find certain things, for a start a lot of games development companies will implement some form of "photography mode" into them meaning that the raw beauty of in-game worlds can be captured with relative east, what is more is that game development companies will also tend to give the player the ability to control ISO, Shutter Speed etc that you would also get from a full camera setup, thus meaning that it is possible to capture some truly amazing photographs from within a game, that subsequently have as much detail and complexation to them as photographs taken from the real world. 

And yet again we find ourselves asking, is it really photography, is Virtual Photography really classed as Photography - and yes it very much is, that of course might ruffle feathers in a metaphorical way from the more conservative of photographer who chooses to capture the landscape outside, but that does not mean that even the most detailed of virtual worlds is full of glorious landscapes to capture using the in-game capture or camera tools available to the player. And games such as Horizon Zero Dawn, Far Cry.... (Others are also available) have some truly stunning detailed worlds within them that could easily be classed as "photo realistic." Meaning that it is possible to capture some truly amazing photography and for that photography when viewed or displayed to look as good as any photographs taken on a real camera. The simple truth remains though that Virtual Photography really is Photography and when you delve into virtual photography you will see that it is a type of photography that offers so much and is also often ignored. Maybe because it is Niche in some ways and that is what makes it so magical. But maybe it is also time that more people explored the beauty of pixels and the virtual world within a video game.