Photography has proven itself to be the most fundamentally enjoyable, yet intimidating and isolating niche interest in VRChat yet for me. I gravitated to virtual photogrpahy so naturally when I started that I hadn't the foggiest idea an entire scene existed for it across various social media platforms and VR Discord channels. Truthfully, I had just had a rather troubled first week in social VR until kind souls helped me discover its amazing aspects -- and I wanted to share how for people like me. Photos of what these experiences simply seemed best suited to that end. Thus this "travelogue" you're reading!
I've done similar hobby projects in other games from Roblox in '00s to FF14 in the late '10s!
But there's admittedly a deeper less wholesome angle too, the nearest term for it I can find is the recent "ambiguphobia." I've always feared being misunderstood, and as a result I'm oversensitive to forgetting--especially distorting--my memories. It's likely why I'm so fueled by notetaking and journaling, as they anchor me in not just my experiences but my identity, values, and relationships on the whole. Doubly so when I joined VRChat after lifting my creative silo that got me through the pandemic only to realize my local friends had all relocated. The more social VR met my needs for connection, the more I kept my viewfinder on-hand to preserve it all.
a.k.a. why I'm always posed like this, aaa. If I can't finally get it in my head that I don't have to hold onto the camera when moving, I swear this will be the ultimate reason I end up with carpal tunnel. ;_;
That's why between this blog and my soon-to-be home community's support, I matured from cluelessly shooting in Screenshot mode to being asked to take the odd group photo. Such encouragement has helped me keep at the craft, to the point I've hosted photoshoots, plundered bookstores, lurked Discords, and even applied to vrclist.com (my worldhopping go-to) to contribute world pictures. But the more I've learned, the more I've started to see the hurdles for virtual photography--some personal, some systemic.
1. It's getting towards a year since the last time my community had the bandwidth to host a photography workshop. Not a dig, just that I really wished I could make it... but no dice. :') In fact, it made me appreciate the effort that it must take + the open floor for new opportunities to improve our camera-craft together.
2. I see photo feeds posted that frankly seem to get little response, regardless of content, if they aren't by someone already widely circulated on social media. I'd love to encourage and shower good vibes on both budding _and_ existing creatives here, as I see all their amazing shots in the VRC photo channels of many Discords! At first it seemed like solely discoverability, but while there is always room for more spotlights, observing communities (new, old, and long-gone) helped me appreciate it's also about the ways for potential onlookers to interact with it.
The core here: photography's self-driven nature. Maybe back in the day you had a more centralized scene, but I imagine that digital photography, social media, and gig work's erosion of those traditional spaces. Appreciating how "self-service" uploading imeeages to VRCList works only further reinforced this feeling for me. We're all just doing our own thing, but sometimes happen to be in the same instances, on the same hashtags, and posting to the same Discord channels as we do it.
It reminds me of indie gamedev: amazing but underconnected talent, coming and going quickly outside a few top names. Not that everyone desires to be those names, naturally! More that these experiences lead me to feel the culture generally stacks the deck against organizing ways to connect photographers and make the hobby more accessible without more effort than average. Contrast say DJs, where you typically _need_ a lineup of several together at a time. :)
To close on a more personal level, the final hurdle for me lies in my viewfinder's purpose. I pursue "coverage" more than aesthetics... but _most_ value the reverse from what I've witnessed. (Okay, maybe unless they're staff at an event, heh.) Turns out this echoes ye olde flame war: do we show the [virtual] world as it is, or augment its "truth" creatively? Naturally each has its merits, it's more about which leads the other? Being opposite the crowd I want to help alienates and drains me, despite still loving when I do photography embracing that personal preference. -- Fundamentally enjoyable, intimidatingly isolating.
My community did help me solve it for a season when I tried a first "photowalk" events. You can't host an official Ancients event without an Event Coordinator, and the one I had co-hosting both shared a drive to improve [others!] with me and had that primarily aesthetic emphasis in their work that mine naturally neglects. Just that, after said season, this EC needed to step back. Of course, when I finally bit the bullet and applied to be an EC, the intrusive thoughts wasted no time in surfacing.
Graciously enough I've been approved as of January this year, and I have responded to my hurdles by slowly exchanging ideas with the community at large. I want to do right by them in addressing these hurdles, balancing our preferences as much as I can in my situation without overextending or deprecating anyone's approach, including my own. So -- to foster connections, share discovery, and improve our "shutterbuds" (🐯👍) -- here we go.
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