Production Notes

When shooting The Last of Us Part II, it is very easy to mess it up. If you let yourself get distracted by the quality of the game assets, especially faces and vistas, you end up taking insignificant uninventing screenshots. Complexity is the keyword, here. Part II compels you to shift perspectives, question your habits of thinking and eventually subvert your feelings. All that must be taken into account when reinterpreting its imagery with the language of photography. I could not just show off the beauty of character models though I was repeatedly tempted to. I could not allow myself to set up an epic angle on a conflict that is all about human misery and the futility of violence. Photography is a double-edged weapon: it can reveal the photographer’s acumen, but also their shallowness. I wanted confrontations to expose the drama they were rooted in. I wanted my portraits to depict some trait of a character’s psychology or represent a turn point in their both physical and inner journey. Part II is about loss, finding, hate, forgiveness, perdition, redemption and a hundred shades in-between. This gallery documents my descent into its characters' souls.

Post-Production Breakdown

Consistently to VGP's true-to-the-game philosophy, this gallery does not significantly rely on post-production. Only a couple of shots benefitted from a few stops of brightness, whereas a couple more had me blur some small pixelated glitches due to the game's not always accurate out of focus effects. Overall, this is how the game  can render on PS4 Pro.

No Post-Production (ingame Photo Mode only): SHARP GIRL, WEEDKILLER, A GIRLFRIEND INDEED, GOING DEEP, JAW DROP, ALONE INSIDE, BEAST OUT, SPLASH DAMAGE, MUSHROOM DINNER, PARADISE REGAINED, DOPPELRITTER, TANGLED, HAUNTED, RABID, TURF WAR, PALO ALTO, LOST AND FOUND, RAMMED, ASSASSIN'S GREED, A SCANNER DARKLY

Minor Post-Production: GOLD RUSH (brightness adjustment), BLOODPORN (local brightness adjustment, glitch removal), HELL'S KITCHEN (glitch blur), BURDENED (glitch blur)