{"id":1067,"date":"2021-07-31T11:26:47","date_gmt":"2021-07-31T10:26:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/participatoryworlds.org\/research\/press_start\/?page_id=1067"},"modified":"2021-09-06T01:52:39","modified_gmt":"2021-09-06T00:52:39","slug":"colinnguyen","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/participatoryworlds.org\/research\/press_start\/artists\/colinnguyen\/","title":{"rendered":"Colin Nguyen"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Colin Nguyen<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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I Like Detectives<\/em> is the alias used by Colin Nguyen, a talented Vietnamese in-game photographer based in the US. Her first contact with the practice goes way back to her middle school days in 2006, while playing the very first 2D MMORPG introduced in Vietnam, V\u00f5 L\u00e2m Truy\u1ec1n K\u1ef3<\/em> (2005), the domestic adaptation of the Chinese game Swordman Online<\/em> (\u5251\u4fa0\u60c5\u7f18, 2003). Although the game did not have a fancy photo mode or a way to hide the HUD at the time, players were still getting together for group\/guild screenshots. These activities sparked Colin\u2019s interest in the idea of capturing in-game images.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\nControl<\/em> \u00a9 Remedy Games.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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A few years later, she started playing another Chinese MMORPG, Jade Dynasty<\/em> (\u8bdb\u4ed9, 2007), based on the homonymous book series – Colin\u2019s favourite. Its active and creative community engaged in planning in-game events, with the aim of recruiting players interested in using their characters to recreate scenes from the books in images and videos. This activity became so popular that the videogame publisher, Perfect World, incorporated a shortcut to hide the HUD, and organised official screenshot and video contests on the forum. Nonetheless, as there is no pause button in MMORPGs, capturing in-game images was particularly complex back then. However, when Colin moved to the US to study abroad, she stopped playing games for almost ten years.<\/p>

In 2018, she restarted her IGP journey, spending a significant amount of time learning basic photography skills, such as composition and post-process editing in Lightroom and Photoshop, while also figuring out how to make the best use of the photo mode controls available in games. First on PS4 and later using a 3-year-old laptop, she tried to explore new approaches and techniques, and used mods and Free Cam to customise her shots. She started to use ReShade after acquiring a new computer in 2019 and has been improving further in the practice ever since, learning to use new tools and collaborating with fellow practitioners in the creation of mods.<\/p>

For Colin, IGP allows her to work with two of the mediums she loves the most, historical and fantasy settings and travel, as she can record both without investing in a professional camera. She is interested in representing strong female protagonists in videogames, <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Not just their physical strengths and \u2018badassery\u2019, but I try to capture their vulnerabilities, complexities, and even dorkiness as a character, because it is still rare to see lead female characters in video games who are not sexualized. [\u2026] I would say the most remarkable achievement is [when] an anonymous user let me know that by following my account for a year, my work on strong female protagonist has made her more comfortable about her body and to me, that is the best thing that someone ever said to me.<\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
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IG Photographer<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Kassandra
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Her creative process is quite flexible, as she prefers to record spontaneous moments and therefore most of her shots are unplanned. When capturing within a PC game, she often uses in-game photo modes (if available), a combination of camera tool mods\/photo mode enhancement hacks, such as Free Cam\/Flycam tools, mods (ranging from textures, weather manipulations, light spawns, gameplay tweaks, character swap, animations, outfits, etc.) and ReShade. In PS-exclusive games, if an in-game photo mode is not provided, she tries switching to first-person view and\/or hiding the HUD in the settings menu (when available).<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Twist<\/i><\/h2>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Control<\/i> \u00a9 Remedy Games.\n<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t

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Ghost of Tsushima<\/i> \u00a9 Sony Interactive Entertainment. With thanks to Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe Limited.\n<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t

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Ghost of Tsushima<\/i> \u00a9 Sony Interactive Entertainment. With thanks to Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe Limited.\n<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t

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Ghost of Tsushima<\/i> \u00a9 Sony Interactive Entertainment. With thanks to Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe Limited.\n<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t

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Ghost of Tsushima<\/i> \u00a9 Sony Interactive Entertainment. With thanks to Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe Limited.\n<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t