Heaven and God Can Be Found in Soho and Guildford Respectively.

I'm writing you a fun little piece about two portraiture shoots I've undertaken this year. Both were for Issue 100 of GamesTM, which I am absolutely ecstatic to be a part of. Apart from seeing my work in the issue, I also got to shoot two very different but very wonderful members of the games industry – creator of Street Fighter IV, Mr Yoshinori Ono and creator of, well, several video games that I know, love and grew up with; head of Lionhead Studios and ex-Bullfrog (as in ex head of Bullfrog Productions – he didn't used to be a Bullfrog) Mr Peter Molyneux OBE.

In case you haven't clocked already, this is likely to be an obscenely nerdy blog update. I will do my level best to tone it down but I'm afraid the subject matter simply can't be dressed up. I will, of course, ensure it is an entertaining piece and won't forget to offer some photographic analysis, too. Besides, you're probably all nerdier than me anyway.

Maybe.

Let's kick off with Ono-san, shall we? I was tasked with producing photographs of Ono-San that would accompany his interview in Issue 100. We were to photograph him in a specially set-up arcade (consisting of dozens of consoles and large flatscreen TVs) in Soho, in the middle of London.

After meeting with the journalist outside our location, we excitedly nipped down the stairs into the venue. Inside lay a cavalcade of flashing screens, the sound of a hundred virtual fists crunching into a hundred virtual chins, a thousand buttons being tippity-tapped and thumbsticks being wiggly-wagged. And a bar. As an atheist, I don't personally believe in a Heaven, but to me, this is what it would look like.

In the corner sat Ono-san himself, mid-interview with another journalist. I just about managed to remember to prepare my equipment and take some test shots instead of hopelessly gawking at the neon wonderland that lay before me and then it was time for us to proceed to the interview area.

Ono-san himself was a great guy and an absolute joy to photograph. He was as much a wonderful caricature as his videogame characters are – rocking back and forth, laughing uproariously, gesticulating wildly as if he were performing the necessary motions for some kind of super move. At the same time he made some fantastically interesting and insightful comments about the upcoming (now released) Super SFIV and about the fighting game genre in general (I will spare the non gaming savvy of you the details).

The guy is absolutely full of energy - this is just him talking! (As always, click the images for large)

Although there was no trouble with the subject himself, the lighting was somewhat, well, horrendous. If we were sat in Heaven, the lighting, from a photographer's point of view, had been constructed in, flown in from and set up by Hell. I am aware that is a tenuous metaphor at best - I don't care.

Basically, I had a fast moving subject in a very dimly lit corner of the arcade to deal with. What's more, he was strongly backlit by green and orange lights. I discovered that there was one "sweet spot" I had to wait for, which was when Ono-san leaned forward a little into the path of a single, small overhead spotlight. Which was impossibly orange. That sounds like one of those colours on a wall paint colour chart – Impossibly Orange.

In the end, making use of the available light was by far the best option, better than using flash, as it gave a more accurate representation of how the venue really looked – keeping that underground, slightly dingy yet glorious, unnatural glow an arcade has, which would of course resonate with the readers of the magazine; Ono-san in his natural habitat. Firing off the flash would also, understandably, significantly disrupt the interview, so I never fire the flash during interview.

Following the interview, both the journalist and myself got to have a game of Street Fighter against him. You won't believe me, or maybe even care in the slightest, but we both beat him too! Greatest day of my life. Oh, there was my wedding too. Let's say....joint greatest day of my life.

We then had a very, very small window of time in which to take some posed shots. Hardly the shy and retiring type, Ono did whatever I asked him. If I'd have asked him to do a handstand and shout the alphabet backwards, I think he would've done. It's so refreshing to have such a fun, unreserved subject to photograph. He absolutely loved performing. What a guy.

I used a flash for these pics for two important reasons. First, these images were to be the posed shots, one of which would end up as what magazines call the "lead image" – an image or piece of art that accompanies the title, with the intention of drawing the reader in. I wanted a different feel to these pictures, to show the reader that it was intended as an accompaniment to the title. Second, using the flash allowed me to lower my ISO settings. The lower the ISO, the less grainy the image. Seeing as lead images tend to be printed at a larger size, it is a good idea to drop the ISO as low as is feasible in order to ensure a crisp, noiseless lead image.

Eventually, we had to leave the Kingdom of Heaven, wave goodbye to its cries of "KO!", its lovely multicoloured lights and its bar, but it's a day I won't forget in a hurry, that's for sure.

Onto Operation "Meet Mr Molyneux". I took the train to Lionhead Studios over in Guildford to provide photography that would also accompany the 100^th Issue of GamesTM Magazine. Popping on the train to meet and photograph an extremely influential and famous videogame developer, one whose games you remember from when you were about 9 years old (I'm having to use every ounce of my will to not list them all right now) and throughout your years as a younger man. Easy, right?

To be honest, any nervousness about this shoot melted away thanks to a combination of the sheer excitement of the opportunity, getting my mind "into the zone" (sounds intense, dunnit?) and the disarmingly friendly and humble nature of Peter himself, who was just great. Peter is funny, a blue-sky thinker (stop "humph!"ing fellow nerds) and incredibly self-aware.

That last sentence sounds a bit like a school report.

We ran through a few ideas and Peter was very responsive and welcoming to the ideas I came to him with. It was great to see the extreme attention to detail he exhibited concerning the below image of him pretending to play some kind of strategic game (still sounding like a school report).

He ran through a few possible combinations of the tokens I had brought along before settling on a setup he felt made logical sense. Truly this is a man who thinks carefully about every design decision he makes. It made sense to me – all of my favourite games he is responsible for still hold up today as playable and immensely fun and deep, and I was getting a glimpse into the mentality of the man who created these games that meant so much to me as a child – the god of the god games.

The main idea behind this shot was to give Peter something I knew he'd find interesting – it's creative, gives him something to do for the shot and is relevant to who he is and what he does. The background shows us a tantalising glimpse into some of the design processes without giving away what he's actually working on, and of course relates back to what is at the heart of everything he does – strategy and design. I added something of a dramatic vignette in order to focus on Peter and his actions rather than allowing you to get lost in the detail of the background. It also takes a bit of the boardroom stuffiness away from the image, which was bothering me a little.

We finished with a headshot and a bit of a videogame in-joke, which i can assure you went down well with the staff at GamesTM. You'd be guffhawing, too, if you knew. Honest. I am Scott Pilgrim...

All in all, it was very easy to work with Peter. He was responsive and had plenty of his own input to offer me without being controlling or overbearing. The overall pace, tone and nature of the shoot was dramatically different to the Ono shoot, which was of course equally as enjoyable. The vastly different experiences I had on these two shoots shows once again why portraiture is a joy, constantly suprising and a totally fresh adventure every single time.

Thanks for reading through friends, hope you've enjoyed it. Don't forget I also write for the wonderful Small Aperture blog now. Go and check it out – even the posts that aren't mine are entertaining!

I'll be popping up another post much sooner next time – expect a plethora of new wrestling photos. Plenty of character and charisma and there'll most likely be a chat about lighting and techniques. It won't all be wrestling though – I have another shoot coming up. If pulled off properly, the "big shot" I have in mind will use a couple of different techniques and will require a number of factors working together harmoniously. Sounds intriging, dunnit?!

Thanks for continuing to read the blog and I'll see you soon. Except I won't actually see you at all. Unless you know me. Then I probably will see you at some point. Just sayin'...

For more images and info, be sure to visit www.garethdutton.com