Red Dead Redemption 2 photographer wins Virtual Photography Challenge at London Games Festival 2022

The London Games Festival announced the winner of its Virtual Photography Challenge on 8th April. The winning photograph is a screenshot of the game Red Dead Redemption 2. Gamer Joe Menzies has clicked the winning image in the game. The photography contest was one of the many other exciting events of the festival. Here’s everything you need to know.

The Virtual Photography Challenge

The photos that were a part of the challenge were displayed at the three-day event at Trafalgar Square. According to the official website of the London Games Festival, “The challenge celebrates the new artistic medium of virtual photography where creators can bring video game design and virtual worlds to life. From a stunning landscape to intimate portrait, candid street to abstract architecture or historical to sci-fi fantasy”.

Photographers were to initially display their edited screenshots from the games on social media and send them as entry links to the London Games Festival (LGF). There were three main categories: abstract, portrait, and landscape. It was mentioned that the Virtual Photographer of the Year award would be announced for each category after the competition ended. One person, however, was to win the final prize. This year, the event was supported by NVIDIA Studio. As a result, the judges too were presented by NVIDIA Studio, in partnership with The Fourth Focus.  The final prize was an NVIDIA studio laptop, powered by GeForce RTX 3080 Ti.

The Winning Photograph

Joe Menzies emerged as the final winner for his screenshot from Red Dead Redemption 2, which can be seen here.

Menzies in fact had two entries to the competition, the second one being from Tomb Raider.

All the entries can be found here, and evidently, it has been a close fight, with some beautiful snapshots from each of these creators. Red Dead Redemption 2 had another screenshot from a photographer named Alice Beesley. Other games whose screenshots were displayed in the exhibition include titles like Cyberpunk 2077, Ghostwire Tokyo, Control, Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon Forbidden West, The Last of Us and more. Check the photos out for yourself.

The London Games Festival 2022

The event was held as a hybrid event from 1st April to the 10th of April. Throughout the length of the event, gamers were offered free demo streams for upcoming games like Lab Rat, Mask of the Rose, and Silt. It also included a line-up of 30 games from around the world that were presented as the official selection. Additionally, there was an Ensemble of video game creators from underrepresented ethnicities, held also at the Trafalgar Square. There was also a symposium for creators and publishers and producers called the Games Finance Market.