If you’re a video game enthusiast who’s also trying to get into photography, Texas-based photographer Miles Morales has a creative new video series for you: he’s teaching photography skills through the photo modes in popular games.
Many video games and computer games in recent years have built-in photo modes that allow games to flex their compositional and editing creativity when it comes to capturing screenshots. And with how photo-realistic games have gotten, results can be beautiful and impressive.
For his new series called Photo Mode Perspective, Morales is tapping into these powerful photo modes as a convenient way to teach photography concepts over the Web.
“In this series, we’ll be looking at photo modes in different video games, but through the eyes of a photographer,” Morales writes. “My goal for these videos is so you can not only take better pictures in the game, but also with your camera, or phone, in the real world.”
For his latest 22-minute video in the series, Morales takes a look at the 2018 game God of War on his Playstation 5.
Among the things Morales shows is how different the look of a portrait can be when you shoot with a wide-angle lens versus when you use a telephoto.
Other games Morales has taught with so far include Cyberpunk 2077…
Ghost of Tsushima…
…and Spider-Man.
This series is focusing on games that incorporate real camera settings into their photo modes. Different games have different degrees of manual camera setting control, so your mileage may vary, but this is an interesting way for beginning photographers to try out some elementary photo concepts from the comfort of their own home.
Morales got started in photography in 2018 after going on a three-week trip to Europe and trying out the manual settings on his LG V40 smartphone. Upon returning, he invested in an interchangeable lens camera system and began taking the craft seriously. Fast forward to the present day, and Morales is now a professional car photographer based in Houston who’s making a living doing what he loves.
You can find some of Morales personal photography work on his website and Instagram.