Request for RDR2 mod, https://foundynnel.tumblr.com
…OR, the queering of in-game photography
PATREON-EXCLUSIVE CONTENT
〰️
PATREON-EXCLUSIVE CONTENT 〰️
Red Dead Redemption 2 is set in 1899, when photography was still considered a “new medium” or, as the cliché goes, a “medium in its infancy”. In fact, the device that turned photography into a mass medium in the United States, the Kodak Brownie, was introduced a year later, in 1900. Photography nonetheless plays an important role within the context of the game. On a narrative level, it is embodied by the character of Albert Mason, a real-life nature photographer that the player first encounters in a quest entitled “Arcadia for Amateurs”. French artiste-astronaute Elisa Sanchez (2021) describes her encounter with Mason in her autobiographical essay:
“Arcadia for Amateurs” is a side mission where I met Albert Mason. Arcadia, a country of villages in the mountainous part of the Peloponnese in ancient Greece, has become a symbol of a primitive and idyllic place where people lived happily and in love. It is also the name of one of the first homosexual associations in France, which made me hope for a romance between Arthur and Albert. But, of course, there was no way to make Arthur Morgan anything other than a strict heterosexual.
Albert Mason is an amateur photographer who wants to take pictures of the wildlife of the United States. Clumsy, knowing neither the fauna nor the flora, he solicits my help to protect him from the wild animals he wants to photograph. The romantic visions of the Wild West conveyed by the press and popular literature - which describe the splendid sunsets and the rough comradeship of the men of the frontier and yet ignore the massacre of the native population and the hardness of life - inspired man living in the Eastern cities like Albert Mason to try their luck in the West, in search of a more fulfilling life.
Mason’s character was inspired by George Shiras III, who was the first to use flash photography, thanks to the explosion of magnesium powder, to photograph the night life of animals. Albert Mason dreams of the Wild West as Arcadia: a wild country, which has not yet known the throes of civilization, filled with magnificent animals that are waiting for him to be revealed. Albert displays a sense of wonder that is quite similar to the one I felt when I entered the game. As fascinated as he is, I observe with binoculars dozens of animals, listed in an encyclopedia that grows richer as I discover them. I pick flowers, track raccoons and get mauled by grizzly bears, and I can’t help but feel the beauty of the moonlight or the reflection of the sun in the streams with each step. Red Dead Redemption 2 is fully aware of its aesthetics and incorporates a photo mode which allows the player to capture images of the great wilderness.”
As Sanchez writes, the fictional Mason is indeed based on a historical figure, George Shiras III, like several other characters featured in the game. The “real” Shiras was born into a wealthy family in Alleghany, Pennsylvania, later becoming part of Pittsburgh, in 1859. His father, George Jr., was an attorney who served on the United States Supreme Court for eleven years. Shiras III attended the most exclusive schools in the country: he was an undergraduate at Cornell and — following in his father’s footsteps — received his law degree from Yale. He eventually became the U.S. Representative from the state of Pennsylvania. He was also an amateur wildlife photographer and his photos were featured in the National Geographic. In 1906, the influential magazine published 74 of his photographs and in 1928, Shiras donated 2,400 of his glass plate negatives, which are now part of the National Geographic Society archive. In turn, Shiras III’s award-winning Midnight — a suite of ten photographs of deer taken at night, all of which were taken from a boat using a jack light and illuminated by flashlight — were instrumental in the somehow controversial transformation of the National Geographic from a technical magazine into a mainstream publication (Brower, 2008, pp. 173-174)…
Matteo Bittanti
This is a Patreon exclusive article. To read the full text consider joining our Patreon community.