Yes, it is like pre-editing, that’s one of the things I really enjoy about it. I can definitely see how it could be great practice for photographers, especially with composition.

The ability to freeze the scene is actually one of the most important tools of virtual photography, and possibly an incredible practice for photographers both old and new. It gives you a chance to play, practice, experiment in a frozen moment. It helps you develop your eye and see what subtle changes happen as you move around, adjust the lenses, watch the lighting and shadows. It’s almost like pre-editing. I find that as a adjust the scene prior to snapping the “shutter,” my thought process is very similar to when I’m actually editing a photo in Lightroom. Each move is a subtle experiment to see how things change. This frozen space is a playground to learn what actually changes when you change your perspective and your “camera” settings.

Hello Kacey, you’re absolutely right, I didn’t consider that difference at first, now it seems obvious after you pointed it out. We get to literally freeze time to compose the scene the way we want without fear of missing anything.

What I find most interesting about virtual photography, it pushes us to understand photography as a whole even deeper. Thank you for your comment!

This is not to say that virtual photography is still not valid. I take an awful lot of screenshots, myself, and I use my photographer’s eye when doing so, but there is still that disconnect where you are missing the transience of the moment itself.