Official Japanese Pokemon Twitter account holds a New Pokémon Snap “clumsy” photo contest

Publication date of the original Japanese article: 2021-06-15 19:31 (JST)
Translated by. Nick Mosier

The Pokémon Company opened the “New Pokémon Snap Clumsy Photo Contest” through the official Japanese Twitter account in June.

Players just need to add the hashtag “#Newポケモンスナップへたくそ写真選手権” (New Pokémon Snap Clumsy Photo Contest) to participate in the lighthearted event.

New Pokémon Snap is a title that Nintendo released on April 30 for the Nintendo Switch, with development being handled by Bandai Namco. The protagonist of the title is on a mission to help Professor Mirror research more about the untamed Lental region by taking photos of Pokémon in their natural habitats.

The Lental region is made up of various islands and areas that players explore from the comfort of the NEO-ONE, a vehicle that moves automatically so that players have a full 360 degrees of freedom to snap amazing Pokémon pictures.

In New Pokémon Snap, photos are given a score based on various criteria. Scores will vary depending on things like how big the Pokémon is in the frame, how rare of an action they’re performing, and if other Pokémon are in the shot.

It might sound like you need real photography skills to play, but that isn’t really the case. That’s because in addition to the routes being on rails, the photography equipment also has its settings fixed so you don’t have to consider various aspects of photography like the camera’s angle of view or focus.

Photos can also be edited afterwards, but the freedom is limited. Getting high scores in New Pokémon Snap is more about capturing rare situations, so getting a great picture (i.e., getting high scores) can usually be done with just some trial and error.

But the Clumsy Photo Contestcan be thought of as trial-and-error in the opposite direction. Trying to take clumsy looking photos can be an art unto itself. It can be hard to define what exactly is a bad photo, but Twitter is already filled with creative entries like Pokémon with their eyes half-closed and Pokémon that look like they’ve just had it.

There are also extreme close-ups, pictures that are partially cut off, and other ideas lovingly crafted by players. The official Pokémon news account @poke_times also uploaded an interesting sample photo of an Alolan Raichu that slipped in the sand.

New Pokémon Snap is mostly a game about taking good pictures, but the variety of good pictures that can be taken is fairly limited, so flipping that on its head to have a clumsy photo contest is actually pretty clever.

Check the hashtag #Newポケモンスナップへたくそ写真選手権 to see all the clumsy, but lovingly composed photographs.