Basic Readings on In-Game Photography

This is a list of basic readings on in-game photography as a practice, medium, and art form:

Bittanti, Matteo. 2010. “Game Art: Robert Overweg, Streetphotographer in Video Game Worlds.” Weblog. GAMESCENES. ART IN THE AGE OF VIDEOGAMES. 2010. http://www.gamescenes.org/2010/05/game-art-robert-overweg-streetphotographer-in-a-virtual-world-2010.html.
———. 2011. “The Art of Screenshoot-Ing: Joshua Taylor, Videogame Photographer.” Mister Bit – Wired IT (blog). December 24, 2011. http://blog.wired.it/misterbit/2011/12/24/the-art-of-screenshoot-ing-joshua-taylor-videogame-photographer.html.
Bittanti, Matteo, and Marco De Mutiis, eds. 2025. Fotoludica. Fotografia e videogiochi tra arte e documentazione. Mimesis Edizioni.
Bonner, Marc. ed. 2021. Game | World | Architectonics. Heidelberg: University Publishing. https://doi.org/10.17885/HEIUP.752.
Bonner, Marc. 2023. Offene-Welt-Strukturen. Architektur, Stadt- und Naturlandschaft im Computerspiel. Marburg: Büchner.
Campion, Ben. 2024. “Wilson’s Multi-stage Account and the Dilemma of Videogame Photography.” In Debates in Aesthetics, 18(2). https://debatesinaesthetics.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/DIA-VOL-18-NO-2.pdf#page=49.
De Mutiis, Marco. 2024. “From In-Game Photography to Playable Imaging.” In Virtual Photography: Artificial Intelligence, in-Game, and Extended Reality, ed. by Ali Shobeiri und Helen Westgeest, 83–101. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag.
De Mutiis, Marco. 2023. “How to Win at Photography – How Games Teach Us to See.” In Screen Images. In-Game Photography, Screenshot, Screencast, ed. by Winfried Gerling, Sebastian Möring, and Marco De Mutiis, 253–62. ZeM Sammelband 4. Berlin: Kulturverlag Kadmos. https://doi.org/10.55309/c3ie61k5.
De Mutiis, Marco, and Matteo Bittanti. 2024. The Photographer’s Guide to Los Santos. Sesto San Giovanni: Mimesis International. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-dP0WbngBsUlLA6h4sdBguchxNQ7GDGi/view?usp=sharing&usp=embed_facebook.
Frosh, Paul. 2023. „Screenshots and the Memory of Photography“. In Screen Images. In-Game Photography, Screenshot, Screencast, ed. by Winfried Gerling, Sebastian Möring, and Marco De Mutiis, 173–90. ZeM Sammelband 4. Berlin: Kulturverlag Kadmos. https://doi.org/10.55309/c3ie61k5.
Gerling, Winfried. 2018. “Photography in the Digital.” Photographies 11 (2–3): 149–67. https://doi.org/10.1080/17540763.2018.1445013.
Gerling, Winfried, Sebastian Möring, and Marco De Mutiis. eds. 2023. Screen Images. In-Game Photography, Screenshot, Screencast. ZeM Sammelband 4. Berlin: Kulturverlag Kadmos. https://doi.org/10.55309/c3ie61k5.
Giddings, Seth. 2013. “Drawing without Light.” In The Photographic Image in Digital Culture, edited by Martin Lister, 41–55. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Krichane, Selim. 2021. “When Seeing is Playing: The History of the Videogame Camera.” Game Studies. The International Journal of Computer Game Research 21 (2). https://gamestudies.org/2102/articles/krichane.
Lajoie, Jason. 2015. “Playing the Photographer in the Last of Us Remastererd: A New Frontier of Digital Photography.” First Person Scholar (blog). June 24, 2015. http://www.firstpersonscholar.com/playing-the-photographer-in-the-last-of-us-remastered/.
Moore, Christopher. 2014. “Screenshots as Virtual Photography: Cybernetics, Remediation, and Affect.” In Advancing Digital Humanities: Research, Methods, Theories, edited by Katherine Bode and Paul Longley Arthur, 141–60. http://www.palgraveconnect.com/doifinder/10.1057/9781137337016.
Möring, Sebastian. 2023. “The Conditional Cyberimage – On the Role of Gameplay in Artistic In-Game Photography.” In Screen Images. In-Game Photography, Screenshot, Screencast, herausgegeben von Winfried Gerling, Sebastian Möring, und Marco De Mutiis, 263–82. ZeM Sammelband 4. Berlin: Kadmos. https://doi.org/10.55309/c3ie61k5.
Möring, Sebastian, and Marco De Mutiis. 2019. “Camera Ludica: Reflections on Photography in Video Games.” In Intermedia Games – Games Inter Media: Video Games and Intermediality, edited by Michael Fuchs and Jeff Thoss, 69–94. New York: Bloomsbury Academic.
Orlando, Alexandra, and Betsy Brey. 2015. “Press A to Shoot.” Weblog. First Person Scholar (blog). April 15, 2015. http://www.firstpersonscholar.com/press-a-to-shoot/.
Poremba, Cindy. 2007. “Point and Shoot: Remediating Photography in Gamespace.” Games and Culture 2 (1): 49–58. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412006295397.
———. 2023. “Ansel and the (T / M)Aking of Amateur Game Photography.” In Screen Images. In-Game Photography, Screenshot, Screencast, ed. by Winfried Gerling, Sebastian Möring, and Marco De Mutiis, 223–43. ZeM Sammelband 4. Berlin: Kulturverlag Kadmos. https://doi.org/10.55309/c3ie61k5.
Raab, Josh, and Ashley Gilbertson. 2014. “A War Photographer Embeds Himself Inside a Video Game.” Time. September 15, 2014. http://time.com/3393418/a-war-photographer-embeds-himself-inside-a-video-game/.
Rauch, Eron. 2012. “Virtual Light: Exploring In-Game Photography And Photo History.” Weblog. videogametourism.at. August 28, 2012. http://videogametourism.at/content/virtual-light-exploring-game-photography-and-photo-history.
Rizov, Vladimir. 2021. „PlayStation Photography: Towards an Understanding of Video Game Photography“. In Game | World | Architectonics: Transdisciplinary Approaches on Structures and Mechanics, Levels and Spaces, Aesthetics and Perception, ed. by Marc Bonner, 49–62. Heidelberg: Heidelberg University. https://doi.org/10.17885/heiup.752.c10378.
Sandor, Ellen, and Janine Fron. 2001. “The Future of Video Games as an Art: On the Art of Playing with Shadows.” Playing by the Rules: The Cultural Policy Challenges of Video Games. http://culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/sites/culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/files/sandor.pdf.
Schofield, Michael Peter. 2024. “Camera Phantasma: Reframing virtual photographies in the age of AI.” In Convergence, 30(2), 687–709. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565231220314.
Shobeiri, Ali, and Helen Westgeest, eds. 2024. Virtual Photography: Artificial Intelligence, in-Game, and Extended Reality. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag.
Sigl, Rainer. 2012. “The Art of in-game Photography.” Weblog. videogametourism.at. July 25, 2012. http://videogametourism.at/content/art-game-photography.
Švelch, Jan. 2020. “Redefining Screenshots: Toward Critical Literacy of Screen Capture Practices.” Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, September. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856520950184.
Urban, Alex C. 2023. “Mementos from Digital Worlds: Video Game Photography as Documentation.” Journal of Documentation 79 (2): 398–414. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-01-2022-0028.
Waszkiewicz, Agata. 2023. “Narrative selfies and player–character intimacy in interface games.” In Eludamos: Journal for Computer Game Culture, 14(1), 99–123. https://doi.org/10.7557/23.6588.
Werning, Stefan. 2024. „Remediating Green Practices: Lanscape Photography and Nature Documentary Filmmaking in Video Games“. In Ecogames. Playful Perspectives on the Climate Crisis, ed. by Laura op de Beke, Joost Raessens, Stefan Werning, and Gerald Farca. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. dx.doi.org/10.5117/9789463721196_ch28.
Zylinska, Joanna. 2023. “Screen Cuts: Training Perception Beyond ‘the Eye'”. In Screen Images. In-Game Photography, Screenshot, Screencast, ed. by Winfried Gerling, Sebastian Möring, and Marco De Mutiis, 201–13. ZeM Sammelband 4. Berlin: Kulturverlag Kadmos. https://doi.org/10.55309/c3ie61k5.
Zylinska, Joanna. 2023. The Perception Machine: Our Photographic Future between the Eye and AI. Cambridge: The MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/14471.001.0001.
Zylinska, J. (2020). Perception at the End of the World, or How Not to Play Video Games. New York and Pittsburgh: FlugSchriften. https://flugschriften.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/flugschriften-7-joanna-zylinska-perceptions-at-the-end-of-the-world-or-how-not-to-play-videogames.pdf.