Kickstart gallery

Snowscape

Author: Steven Pander

Country: USA

Videogame: Halo 3

Platform: Xbox 360

Cold

Author: Steven Pander

Country: USA

Videogame: Halo 3

Platform: Xbox 360

Leap of faith

Author: Steven Pander

Country: USA

Videogame: Halo 3

Platform: Xbox 360

Smells like Freedom

Author: André Thys

Country: Brazil

Videogame: Half-Life 2: Episode 2

Platform: PC

Dannydog is looking good!

Author: Ryan

Country: [---]

Videogame: Team Fortress 2

Platform: PC

Untitled

Author: Brock

Country: [---]

Videogame: Spore

Platform: PC

Sunset at sea

Author: Keith Ellis

Country: England

Videogame: Final Fantasy XI

Platform: PC

A secret note in a lost corner of Liberty City

Author: Shawn

Country: USA

Videogame: Grand Theft Auto III

Platform: PlayStation 2

Rubberduck is looking good!

Author: Ryan

Country: [---]

Videogame: Team Fortress 2

Platform: PC

Hunturul is looking good!

Author: Ryan

Country: [---]

Videogame: Team Fortress 2

Platform: PC

Smells like Freedom

Author: André Thys

Country: Brazil

Videogame: Half-Life 2: Episode 2

Platform: PC

Almost there!

Hi yourselves, Travellers.

Six days from now we'll officially open the first TWZ gallery. Readied your cameras?

It seems that this project has already made many of you quite excited, and indeed not only we've been having visitors from all countries, but we've also received already a dozen beautiful pictures (you can see the first one here, we'll probably post the rest of them next Sunday).

Before you start sending your photos, though, please read the new post in the "Bon voyage!" section you can see on the right column: we intend to credit each picture's author properly.

Also, we would like to thank all the gamers who've written us to show their ethusiastic support for this initiative, and obviously all the videogame sites that have been giving us quite a highlight all over the world in the last few weeks.

Thank you,
and bon voyage!

Welcome back! [and a few rules before sending you pictures]

Welcome back, Travellers!

Did you have a nice journey?

Why don't you share with us your best photos?

Here's how:

1a) Use the title you want to give your picture as the file name.

1b) If you don't want to give it any title, please write "Untitled" on it.

2a) If you are sending a picture for the monthly gallery theme, remember to add it to the file name like this:

"[Theme] Title of the picture.jpg".

2b) If you are sending a picture that doesn't fit the monthly theme, please rename it like this:

"[General] Title of the picture.jpg".

3) Please tell us in the email text what version of a videogame you used to take your pictures.

4) Tell us also your name, surname, and nationality so we can credit you properly for your photos.

5) When everything is set and ready, please zip or rar your photos in one file and send it to ZaloTWM@gmail.com .

Need an example? No problem.

Suppose you want to send a picture you call "Travelling Without Moving".

If the gallery theme of the month is (for instance) "Places" and the photo can be related to it, rename the file "[Places] Travelling Without Moving.jpg".

If you want to send the picture but it doesn't fit the monthly gallery theme, rename the file "[General] Travelling Without Moving.jpg".

If you don't want to give it any title, just rename it "[Places] Untitled.jpg" or "[General] Untitled.jpg".

And that's it!

Credit where credit is due

In the beginning it was July 2005. A topic created by Gaetano Lenoci on The First Place forum, "Il videogioco in una fotografia" [lit. "Videogame in a photography"], first suggested the use of a single picture to describe videogames and to capture the feeling of a (virtual) moment (actually) lived by the videogamer.

The idea was simply brilliant, and only four months later had already grown into a challenging public contest edited by Italian journalist Ivan Fulco on The First Place site: namely, the Still Life Competition.

The contest proved a success, and after that not only a second one (the Still Life Competition - Reloaded) followed shortly, but it also sprouted both the opening of many solo galleries by other users and the concept of "Still Live": pictures shot in the real world to describe videogame and its virtual spaces. Even this case, the idea generated its own competition and galleries and, as of September 2008, The First Place proudly hosts 22 Still Life galleries and 20 Still Live galleries (See links below).

But that is not all.

Back in 2004, videogame journalist and film critic Emilio Bellu had come up with the fascinating concept of a reportage, made of images and words, from virtual worlds: a "Virtual Geographic".

In time, many Virtual Geographics were published on The First Place site, and in September 2006 the idea even developed into a book: "Virtual Geographic: Viaggi nei mondi dei videogiochi" [Lit.: "Virtual Geographic: Journeys into the Worlds of Videogames"] (ed. Costa & Nolan).

Edited by Ivan Fulco, the book brought to the reader a series of fine Virtual Geographics created by The First Place Service staff, interesting essays by the same TFP staff and prominent critics and theorists Matteo Bittanti, Mario Gerosa and Douglas Wilson, and diaries recounting the virtual lives of four notorious avatars living in MMOGs such as Second Life, Entropia Universe and Guild Wars.

In 2008, in a time of photorealistic graphics and Full-HD videogames and LCDs, the concepts of Still Life and Virtual Geographics originally elaborated by The First Place users and staff seem more fresh and intriguing than ever. Can they evolve into a true "videogame photography" with esthetics, sensibilities and styles of its own?

Time will tell, as they say. But in this particular case, videogamers are actually the ones who ultimately hold the answer. Because this is what this space was created for: to bring the subject on an international, multi-cultural level, and to unite local videogamers communities from all countries into one unique place where they can meet and share their own virtual experiences despite all the linguistic barriers that normally keep them divided.

A place where images, and not words, matter...

Links:

- The First Idea (by Gaetano Lenoci)

- Ivan Fulco's The First Place

- The First Still Life Competition

- The First Still Live Competition

- The First Virtual Geographic (by Emilio Bellu)

- Virtual Geographic: Viaggi nei mondi dei videogiochi (Book edited by Ivan Fulco)

Bon voyage! [and a few rules before travelling]

Welcome, Videogame Travellers!
Ready for a new journey?

The rules are simple:

1) Take a picture of whatever captures your attention.
A character, a building, a landscape, a scene... There's absolutely no restriction as to what you can photograph.

2) Try to take meaningful pictures.
Partecipation is open to anyone and there's no need to be an actual photographer, but we want you to create galleries of photographies, not just anonymous tons of screenshots.

3) Only pictures from videogames are accepted.
You can send the whole screenshot or just a small detail. Photo editing is admitted, as long as you don't paste parts from different pictures or games together.

4) You can give your photos a title.
There's no character limit, but please don't write a novel to name them. At least for now, we'll stay focused on images.

5) Each month has its main gallery.
For the time being, we'll alternate a theme-related gallery and a single videogame title-related one. You'll find a list of names on the right column to help decide the theme for the following month via public poll.
If you don't like any of the possible choices, feel free to suggest one via email: if a theme is proposed by many, we'll add it to the list. In order to keep the polls as fair as possible, though, we won't accept and add any more possible answers after the 15th day of each month.

6) You don't have to partecipate to the monthly theme gallery in order to send your pictures.
Each week a second gallery will collect all the other photos, as well. Tags should preserve order among photos.

7) Please do your best to keep any discussion on polite levels.
Comments are open to anyone and are always extremely welcome, but this is not a forum and there are not moderators: everything is up to you.

8) This blog has just started and may need its time to improve. If you have suggestions, share them and send them via email.


Looking forward to see where you have travelled without moving.

Bon voyage!