2023-06-17 16:00:12
With its large pixels and black and white shots, the Game Boy Camera is enough to thrill the nostalgic fiber of those who, during their childhood, held Nintendo’s portable console in their hands.
When it was released in France on June 17, 1998, this lens, which fits into the back of the console and transforms it into a digital camera, is barely convincing. The fault of “a very average definition and [à] very limited technical performance”, deplore the journalist of Monde Pierre Trillat.
At the time, the console that saw the birth of the first Pokémon was at the end of its cycle. She is 9 years old: an eternity. The following year, its Japanese manufacturer announced its successor, the Game Boy Advance, four times more powerful.
Low resolution but great longevity: a quarter of a century later, the Game Boy Camera stimulates the creativity of artists who love photography and retro consoles. Its instantly recognizable aesthetic has found a second life on the web or social networks. But the device is not easily tamed. Those who try it must overcome a series of obstacles to master the fundamentals of “Game Boy photography”.
Quest N° 1: take a good photo
Since January, the old console has been used to immortalize, for example, the mobilization against the pension reform. Pierre Corbinais, author and screenwriter of video games (Bury me my love, Road 96: Mile 0), posts pixelated photographs of Marseille processions on the social network Mastodon.
Covering such an event with a camera that doesn’t bother with details or colors is a challenge, he tells the Monde : “At the first demonstration, I had very, very, very few good photos. » The exercise is all the more perilous as the Game Boy Camera has a small screen and can only store thirty images.
However, the amateur photographer is not discouraged. For him, artistic constraint is a powerful creative engine when deployed knowingly. A principle inspired by the Oulipo, a literary research group co-founded by Raymond Queneau in 1960.
“The Game Boy Camera teaches you to look at things differently. The photo of the shadow of a pole on a wall is much more interesting than a cherry blossom tree. What works, in fact, are the big contrasts », believes the thirties. He sees there a “brutalist approach” photography that continues to influence him since he began to practice it last November: he created a free video game, published in Mayfrom images taken with his Game Boy Camera.
Quest N° 2: recover the photos
In 1998, the Game Boy Camera was sold with the Game Boy Printer. This additional accessory prints the clichés on receipt-sized paper. A delightfully antiquated principle, the only way to keep track of those photos that are impossible to transfer to a hard drive and, obviously, even less to the cloud.
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It is first of all a source of frustration for Jean-Jacques Calbayrac, who bought his Game Boy Camera for two euros at a flea market in 2013. At the time, the photography student at the Gobelins school, in Paris, scour the web in search of solutions. They are then only a handful to be interested in the object. He solves the problem by obtaining a case made in the mid-2010s by American students.
Thanks to this device – since replicated by many other fans – he can now transfer his photos to a computer, and launch, in 2016, the account @gameboycameraman on Instagram. He offers both street photography, portraits and naturalistic images. There takeover of a photo by the official account from Instagram draws attention: @gameboycameraman becomes one of the important accounts of the “Game Boy photography” movement. He has more than 8,000 subscribers.
Quest N° 3: go beyond the pixel
Since then, Jean-Jacques Calbayrac has become a developer. He was thus able to closely study the algorithms of Nintendo’s hybrid machine. For him, its inimitable visual rendering is played “beyond the pixel” : “It can produce cross patterns or dots in the middle of solid blacks which I find superb. It was inspired by printing patterns from the 1950s and 1960s, which allowed you to make gradients with just black ink. »
His artistic potential is gradually being rediscovered. In the 2000s, artists rarely acclaimed it, with the notable exception of Neil Young, qui uses it to illustrate the cover of his album Silver and Gold. Today, she gives birth to mutant digital art projects, such as « The Game Boy Camera Gallery ». This exhibitiondesigned by American Cat Graham in 2022, can be consulted inside a video game itself, which can be discovered online or on a Game Boy cartridge.
Quest #4: Optimize the Device
Andreas Hahn is one of the artists exhibited by “The Game Boy Camera Gallery”. This German developer has fun unleashing the potential of the Game Boy Camera by tweaking it.
Some of its programs unlock access to shutter speed or sharpness, automatically managed by default. This 3D printing enthusiast is collaborating with other internet users to make camera lens mounts to attach to the single eye of the cartridge.
Opening Game Boy Cameras, examining them and changing the parts… The approach is the same as that of a collector of old cars who spends his free time under the bonnet of his racing cars. The activity now fascinates Andreas Hahn as much as the practice of photography.
Modernizing an object which is precisely attractive thanks to its technical limitations may seem paradoxical. “The “mods” [modifications] just allow you to have better control over the image. But its main limitations, its low resolution and the four colors are retained”he responds to Monde.
By placing massive telephoto lenses on the little craft, Andreas is able to zoom in on tall buildings – or even take great views of the Moon. An astrophysicist even went further by connecting his Game Boy Camera to a telescope to offer images – very rudimentary – of the moons of Jupiter. Thanks to these enthusiasts, the device designed twenty-five years ago to capture the faces of children in the 1990s can now boast of aiming for the stars.
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