Fernando Pereira Gomes was one of thousands of gamers who queued up for the midnight release of Grand Theft Auto V September 16. The 20-year-old photography student returned home with his copy and played straight through the night.
As he explored the game, he became fascinated by its visual architecture. Using his character’s cameraphone â€" a feature unique to GTA V â€" Gomes began to take photographs within the game and upload them to Rockstar’s public server. From there, a striking photo series titled “Street Photography V†took shape.
“I noticed how big of a world the game has and how beautiful it was, the architecture and the light changing,†Gomes tells Mashable. “In the afternoon you get these beautiful sunsets, or at night with the streetlamps. I started noticing that the compositions were really aesthetic.â€
Image: Hanna Bradbury
Gomes originally registered his Tumblr as a place to house his traditional street photography: black and white images inspired by the pioneering photojournalist Henri Cartier-Bresson and photographers like Ray Metzker, Lee Friedlander and Robert Capa. Turning to “Street Photography V,†he gave the blog a new title and a quick makeover, dedicating it exclusively to posting photos captured in-game.
The photographs take advantage of GTA V's sophisticated composition and attention to aesthetic details, such as lighting and shadow. Crisp, bold lines heighten the visual impact: a street view bisected by a sloping sidewalk or a lamppost that juts into the sky.
What’s striking is that many of the photographs from “Street Photography V†resemble his images from the streets of New York. Fittingly, his approach to capturing the fictional city of Los Santos, where Grand Theft Auto V is set, is very similar to his technique in real life.
“I look for the aesthetic qualities and compositions that can alter the mood of a scene that might seem very quotidian,†he says. “I’ll go on long walks, and sometimes I’ll find a background on the street that really pleases me, and maybe I’ll hang around there and see if anything interesting happens. I can’t go out and look for the photo â€" you have to anticipate what is going to happen around you, and you have to react to it with your camera.â€
The game offers certain practical advantages that real-life photography cannot, for instance, being able to dart into traffic to take the perfect shot, or bringing a car to a dead stop in the middle of a crowded freeway to capture a scene. But it has its limitations, as well.
“The character can’t crouch, lean down or change perspective,†he says. “That puts a limitation on the composition. The biggest issue is probably the resolution: 630 [pixels] x 350 at 72 dpi. The images are small, which makes it a bit hard to work with. I’m trying to think of ways to bypass this."
Mostly, however, Gomes was struck by the realism of the game. In addition to GTA V's intricate architecture, Gomes says the characters themselves seemed incredibly true to life.
“I was comparing some of the photos that I've taken on GTA with some of the photos I've taken in real life, and the people behave almost exactly the same,†he says. “The moments felt real. I don’t know if that says something about how good GTA is, or how algorithmic we are.â€
Click through the gallery to see more photos from "Street Photography V."
Image: Fernando Pereira Gomes
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