She Holds the Controller

Brazilian photographer Gabriela Antunes made a series called Girls With Games—women photographed with vintage consoles and controllers, casual and direct, not performing anything for anyone. It circulated through design blogs in late 2011 and I kept returning to it. There’s something right about the framing: the hardware as an extension of the person rather than a prop, games as a natural part of a woman’s visual world rather than borrowed territory. Not a statement. Just a portrait.