Robbie Cooper

I looked at photographer that did portraits and video of people while they were playing computer games. Due to the fact, that I am planning to shoot a guy playing as well I wanted to look at other work that has already been done. Robbie Cooper, who grew up in Britain and Kenya and played a lot of video games as a child, says he tries to capture "people interacting with worlds that aren't real".

Photographer arranged his equipment so that the players were actually looking at a reflection of the game on a small pane of a glass. He placed the camera behind the reflection so that it could look directly into their faces as they played.

Portraits are medium close-up shot against grey background. The lighting that he sued separates the object from the background and also lights their faces, so everything is seen.

Most of the people in this project, who played computer games or watched films and videos looked very concentrated. There is no smile, just a serious look on their faces. TV makes them forget about everything around them, the fact that they are being filmed and photographed and the only important thing is a game. People loose themselves in the game and they don't care any more of how expression they are showing.

I found this project really interesting as it shows people's real emotions whilst they are in front of a TV screen.


Bibliography:

Robbie, C. (2008). My Game Face, New York Times Magazine, p. 80, Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost.