Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-124.177.133.112-20151118020312/@comment-25396609-20160124082013

The show may not follow ordinary logic but it has strong internal consistency as to what is or is not possible.

Monty stated that

1: Velvet is a mage type fighter

2:Her teammates highly value her abilities

If her mage abilities involved photography, then she would be more skilled with it as being skilled would most likely improve her effectiveness; you don't become a respected member of a high ranking team by being crap with your weapon.

I do not argue that her weapon cannot be the camera, but that the camera itself is not related to her fighting style.

As for your dragon piss comment; energy, regardless of universe, comes from somewhere.

Dust is pure elemental energy, it does have some source that has been hinted at but we do not have the details.

Aura is energy from the soul, the soul can be understood as a metaphysical extension of the body,  and the body generates energy by intaking certain substance to use as fuel.

In order for her to use photographs to store energy she would need to be compressing her aura into photos, which means she would have had to have been a photographer BEFORE unlocking her aura (in order for that trait to be expressed in a semblance), which expands the training window even further.