Photographing Pokémons

Pokémon Go motivates people to walk. It is also a new way to photograph the nature. In addition to real wildlife, the world around now includes an increasing number of virtual creatures.

I wrote an illustrated diary summarizing my own path of trials, errors and joy from level 1 to 10. I also share tips that I learned during my first weeks of being a Pokémon photographer.

Photographing Pokémons does principally not differ much from photographing other animals.

Firstly, you must know your potential target animals.  Where do they live, at what times do they move around? What do they want and need, how is their behavior?

Secondly, you must master – or at least cope with – anything that may affect the picture. Background. Sun’s direction. Clouds. Shadows casted by a nearby tree. Photography is – literally – about light. Nature photography is continuous learning about different places and different lights produced by different weathers.

And thirdly, as the easiest part, you have to master your tools of photography – in this case the Pokémon Go.

Good animal photos show the species in their typical environments, doing something that is characteristic to them. A good photo triggers the viewer to imagine a credible story.

As a photographer, when you see an Oddish walking on grass, or a Hypno in front of hypnotizing graphic ornaments, you are looking for stories, not XP.

Three different ways to Poké Photos

In Pokémon Go, you can practise photography in different ways. At one extreme you just document the Pokémons you happen to face. At the other extreme you plan the desired combinations of Pokémons and locations.

A) The Documenting Way

1. In Pokémon Go, keep the AR on.
2. Walk around, find Pokémons.
3. Before catching an interesting Pokémon, take a picture.
4. If the software still has not freezed, catch the Pokémon.

B) The Way to Great Memories

1. In Pokémon Go, keep the AR off.
2. Walk around, find Pokémons.
3. When one is worth a photo, turn the AR on.
4. Try to place the Pokémon naturally in the picture.
   Most people think they can walk freely with the Pokémon  but the direction of the Pokémon (in relation to yourself) can’t be changed.
5. But if you need to change the direction… You can. Just switch off the AR, turn the camera to the desired direction, and turn on AR again. Now the Pokémon has turned respectively.

C) The Perfect Artist’s Way

1. Study those Pokémons that you are able to see at your current trainer level. For each of them, what surroundings would look best?
2. In Pokémon Go, keep the AR off.
3. Sooner or later you find your favourite Pokémon. This might happen anywhere. Tap the Pokémon. Now it is bouncing or flapping on your screen in the catch mode. Keep the AR off. Put the phone into sleep mode to keep the battery from draining.
4. Walk or drive to the place where you want to take the photo.
5. Find the right spot, with the desired backgrounds and light.
6. Point the phone camera at the right direction.
7. First now turn on the AR. Now your Pokémon appears exactly where you wanted it to be.
8. Pokémons move lively, they have different gestures and faces. Take as many pictures as you want to. No hurry – the Pokémon will not run away in this mode.
9. To change the Pokémon’s direction in relation to you, turn off the AR, turn the camera, and turn AR on again.

In my own Pokégraphy, I go the B way. I take the photos at exactly those locations where the Pokémon appears, just placing the Pokémon in some natural-alike position.

Whether you go the A, B or C way, you can take pictures in two different techniques.

The technique planned by the game’s designers is to switch on the photo mode, take a picture, and then come back to the catch mode.

The alternative, provided  by Android’s designers, is to simply take a screenshot.   By taking a screenshot, you also get the Pokémons name and CP recorded on the picture.

My first two weeks with Pokémon Go

In the evening of July 12th, 2016, my daughter informed me she had just found and installed a new game: Pokémon Go.

The Pokémons were about the conquer my living room through the phones of our family, so I’d better start studying them.

As part of the first-time-use-confusion I captured a Squirtle. Could I now take a photo of it? No.  The interaction designers of Pokémon Go seem to have forgotten a key use case: take photos of the captured Pokémons in the AR mode.

In the next morning,  I found a Pidgey right next to me on the couch. Now knowing that Pokémons can get through walls into our home, would I dare to go out? What virtual beasts would attack me there? Anyway, the family needed food, so I had to go shopping.

I checked the map. Yes, there were two some-things out there.

Luckily I was there not alone fighting against the angry beast. Approaching the Rattata, I met the first fellow trainers who gave me valuable advices.

The most step-saving advice was that I could catch a Pokémon also from distance, as soon as I saw it on the map, without walking physically to it.

I jumped into my car and drove to the local grocery store, Alepa.

On the store’s parking area there were birds again. Next to the familiar pigeons and magpies, there was a bird that I had not seen before in the Finnish nature: a Spearow.

I started to wonder why all these Poké Birds look so angry. The Angry Birds – which I happen to know better as they are local Finnish species – look much friendlier.

Coming out of the shop, I met my second Rattata. I could confirm that Pokémons do live in their characteristic envirnonments. This one had just climbed out of the sewer.

An hour later I drove along a silent road when my phone alerted me of something unusual. I stopped the car, and there it was: a tiny Pikachu.

As Pikachu is one of the very few Pokémons that I had seen before in the media, I assumed Pikachus are a common character also in Pokémon Go. Later some fellow trainers told they have never seen a Pikachu in this area.

In the evening, it was my turn to take out the dog. Our Cindy is a Laplander’s dog. She has never shown too much interest to birds, and she didn’t seem to notice this Pidgey either although we stopped right next to it to take this photo.

The first 24 hours were over. It was time to open Google and get ready for the next day of hunting more.

From the game analysts’ articles I learned about Poke Stops and Gyms.  Well, in our neighborhood I had seen none of them, so where would I find these mystic sources of Poké Balls and team spirit? After a few more articles, I learned about Ingress.

And yes, the Ingress map revealed there are Poké Stops also in our small town. The map above shows a Poké Stop only 340 meters away. 340 meters assuming I could fly over the fences and buildings. By walking, these distances double, I slowly learned.

The next morning around 8 o’clock family needed more orange juice, so I volunteered to visit the local Alepa again. And that was worth it: As soon I had parked my car, this mighty Drowzee approached me to say hello.

And on my way to home I met a blueish-purple friendly looking insect, Venonat. I knew that Venonats often attack with poison. I didn’t go any closer but I cautiously catched it in a Poké Ball and returned home with the orange juice.

Coming back home, the children gave me a quick status report: there was a nasty rattish Pokémon in our living room. Pokédex describes Raticates: “It may even chew on the walls of houses.” No problem, we caught it.

This would be a beautiful sunny day. I opened the backdoor. Birds were tweeting. Were there some Pokémon birds? No, just the familiar red birds that have been flying around already for a few years.

Enjoying the birds’ summer concert, I had a late breakfast with fresh berries.

Did the raspberries on the backyard’s table attract the Pidgeot that was flapping just behind my back?

Or perhaps this Pidgeot had always been there, and I just hadn’t noticed it before without my app.

After all too many rainy days, this one was full of sunshine. We decided to go to Linnanmäki. A hint for those a few billion people who have not been there yet: you should.

Linnanmäki amusement park was opened on May 27, 1950, and it has well over 1 million visitors every summer. We would add three to that figure.

This male Nidoran was looking at me when we headed for the car. Or perhaps better to say it was listening to us: Nidorans have huge ears.

This Nidoran became one of those many Pokémons that I could not catch because the app freezed before that. Or freezed while I was catching them, or freezed right after I had caught them. Pokémon Go was obviously filled with bugs, making poisonous attacks at the poor software.

Our drive to Helsinki took much longer than usually. We drove smaller roads, visited all the Poké Stops and conquered my very first Gym. That one was the Seurakuntaopisto near Tuusulanjärvi lake in Järvenpää. But anyway, we finally got to Linnanmäki.

We were lucky to find a parking slot nearby on Viipurinkatu, and walked towards the entrance. Turning to Tivolitie, this Zubat was flying to us. It was hard to catch, flapping up and down all the time.

In addition to its many roller coasters and carousels, we saw a good amount of Poké Stops too at Linnanmäki. I was now on Trainer level 6. In other words, I was proceeding clearly slower than my children. Which is good, as so I could always ask for good expert advices.

Our phone batteries started to be pretty empty, so we closed the phones thanks to the app that was eating up batteries like no other software before. Closing the phones was a good change, as so we could focus on the real things around.

After Linnanmäki we drove to city center, quickly loading the batteries while driving. After a refreshing cup of coffee at Starbuck’s, we walked to the Esplanadi Park.

There I realised what Pokémon Go is about. Not about skills, nor about walking. This game is about locations. I was staring at an endless forest of Poké Stops, many of them equipped with Lure Modules.

We stopped sitting next to the statue of Zacharias Topelius, and picked up a – yes, just another Pidgey, also here. And an almost dead fish.

And then the battery was dead again.

A couple of days later in Järvenpää, I studied the wisdoms of the great Pokémon gurus who – based on their wide experiences from San Fransisco to Oakland – recommend that one should go into different types of areas: into parks, into forests, near lakes. And in their articles, any area is flooded with rare Pokémons of different kinds.

So I’d try a new area too: the nearby forest, 300 m northwards from our street.

And this great it looked like:

I assumed this was a server error. I would check the area again later.

First when I got close to my home again, a lonely Pokémon appeared. It was my first EeVee.

For the remaining day, I tried a new strategy. Don’t chase the Pokémons but let them come to you. Result: Pidgeys and Rattatas all over our house, looking apparently for some food. This they don’t tell in Pokédex: Pidgeys love also milk.

Over the evening, the stay-home-strategy turned out to be excellent. The Pokémons got more and more curious, eventually landing on my hand when I was watching TV.

From July 16th onwards, the Pokémon Go user experience changed. Before that, about half of use cases with Pokémon Go had ended in a software bug, typically freezing the client software. From July 16th onwards, the server started to be even more unreliable than the client. The DDoS attack seemed to be better designed than the target software.

July 16th was also the day when Pokémon Go was officially released in this part of the world.

On the next day, there were only a few short timeslots with a working server. During them, I made some more scientific research, experimenting the effects of having the dog with me vs not.

The difference seemed clear. When I was with Cindy, I encountered bigger birds and insects, like the Venonat above (type Insect, weight 30 kg), But when I was walking without the dog, I met also smaller Pokémons like a Jigglypuff (Fairy, 5.5 kg, picture above) resting on a stonewall that surrounds the local cemetery and its four Pokéstops.

This phenomena might explain also why children are superior over adults in Pokémon Go. Children are smaller, thus Pokémons are not as afraid of children.

With Cindy, we often go walking into nearby forests. I can now confirm that the closest forest is 100% real, without any added virtual ingredients. But why are there no Pokémons, ever?  Has someone placed there a big bottle of Anti-Incense?

On this day, I would add one Pokémon to this virtual emptyness. My first 10 km egg was ready to break.

It was a Snorlax (good) with CP 229 (poor). I had not yet read the advice that one should not use the rare 10 km egg immediately but hatch it first when one is above level 20. Then it would break out as something really powerful. Well, now I had learned. For this weak Snorlax, I would have no use.

I tried also walking in areas with wild raspberry bushes.  For some reason, wild raspberries do not seem to attract Pokémons. The raspberries need to be served to them by humans. Applying the usual trick of restaurants to rename food to make it sound better, also raspberries are best served as Razz Berries.

I continued the scientific experiments: How about picking up and eating some wild raspberries myself?

Immediately I started to sense the secrets of Pokémon Go. So many of them that I can’t list them here. Instead, I publish them in a separate post. Soon.

Having now my mind cleared up, I understood that walking in a Pokémon-free forest does not support my development as a Pokémon-photographer.

Not only had the team Niantic programmers left this area without Pokémons but also the Ingress players had forgotten to place the Poké Stops. Being out of Poké Balls was consequently an increasing problem.

Luckily, some family members asked if I could drive them to Helsinki. Yes. There I could spend half an hour walking in the Esplanadi park, with a full battery this time.

On July 18th, at 14:52, I was in the mids of level 9.  I walked to the middle of the Esplanadi park, and saw my first Oddish and Seal. And caught them, with Curveballs.

I started running from one Lure Module to another. Havis Amanda. Drowzee. Great Throw! Could I get today to Level 10?

Crossing the Pohjoisranta, I saw my first fish type Pokémon that was swimming properly where it should, in the water. Naturally the software frezed again justwhen I had caught it, so only the screenshot below proves the fish was in the water.

And then I stopped. Astonished. In front of the Old Market Hall, a Hypno was crossing the street. To stay safe, I waited on the other side of the street.

A Hypno is a man-sized (1.6 m, 76 kg) Psychic Pokémon holding a pendulum in its hand. The arcing movement and the glitter of the pendulum are told to lull the foe into a deep state of hypnosis. And this was the first live one that I had ever seen.

I knew I’d better act fast. It was the time to use my first Razz Berry and my first Great Ball. The combination worked.

The walk through half a park had taken 14 minutes and given three new Pokémons á 500 XP.  And yes, level 10.

Key learning: Make your priorities clear.
Either take photos or catch Pokémons.

During my first couple of weeks with Pokémon Go there were many Pokémons  that I could capture as a photo but not with the Poké Ball.

For example after taking the following pictures, the software freezed. After restarting the app, these Pokémons were no longer there.

The app software stability is poor:  any action adds chances to software freezing. If you want to take photos, then don’t cry for the lost Pokémons. You still have their pictures.

And if it is important for you to catch the Pokémon or get the XP, then do that right away. Don’t risk your goal by trying to take a photo first.

Not a perfect tool yet

Someone concepting the Pokémon Go app had a great idea: to enable AR photographs. It seems that someone else did not implement the idea fully.

You can’t take photos of the captured Pokémons. Only in the catching mode there is a chance to switch on the camera. I’m sure there are millions of people who would take e.g. selfies with their favourite Pokémons if enabled to do so.

Pokémon Go uses the picture delivered by the phone’s native OS. However, Pokémon Go software blurs the photo details badly as demonstrated by the pictures below.

Frustrated with the poor quality of Pokémon Go pictures, the temptation could be near: first take a proper photo with the camera app, then use Photoshop to place the Pokémon on it.

We all know the issue in wildlife photography: some photographers use tricks to make better photos. Some use Photoshop, some lure animals with food, some use tamed animals. Their photos may look great but they have lost the spirit of true nature photography. It is as stupid as levelling up in a game by using a software hack.

True nature photographers feel sorry about incidents like the one of the wild wolf picture in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2009 competition – later found to be a tamed and trained wolf.

Could this be the reason for not allowing users to take pictures of only the wild Pokémons: it would make Pokémon photography too easy? Perhaps they did consider this deeper than I did.

Looking for something even better

Looking at the outcomes of Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality software in 2016, the industry seems to be still on a primitive level. The wrong shadows and the unnatural colours reveal that the virtual objects are not really there. In the future, the lights and shadows of the virtual objects will adapt to those of the real life surroundings. The AR or MR software will also sense the real world objects, walls and ground, and place the virtual objects on them naturally. Google’s Project Tango will be a major step as it will bring  the necessary sensors and software to consumer phones in 2017.

Somewhere in the future, taking great Mixed Reality photos will be as challenging, exciting and rewarding as taking real wildlife photos.

In the future, there may be nature photographers who spend weeks in a forest to capture a flying Pidgeot in just the right light. For them, I set this picture taken by Kari Leo as a benchmark. This one’s a Siberian Jay, a rarely seen bird in the middle of a spruce forest. To face a moment like this, you may first need to walk a few thousand kilometers in the wilderness. And by the way, My Pokémon Go journal tells I have walked only 65 km so far. I am a true beginner.

Having catched them all, now share them all

Photographers are a team who enjoy of each other’s masterpieces.  Pastemagazine has published its own “the best” collection of Pokémon photos published on Reddit.

 

 

 

 

There are also traditional photographers who tell they have found new scenaries thanks to Pokémon Go. Hobbyist photographer Drew Coffman has shared some great shots at petapixel.com.

Epilogue

Remember the Squirtle of which I didn’t get a picture in the beginning? On level 10, I got my second chance. Exactly at the same location – in the living room – my second Squirtle’s jumped to sight. Why did it land on Georges Simenon’s “Maigret”, and not on John Gribbin’s “13.8” that was next to it? Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t know the Pokémons so well yet.

Love nature? Love photographing? Love mobile games?
Catch all three: Welcome to the world of photographing Pokémons!