If you can continue to the airport with constant ground/water visual contact, you are VISUAL. Director doesn't care if you can't quite see the runway or approach lights yet (unless you are VH- reg).
Not by the definition according to regulations I operate under. In order to call visual, I am required to have the runway environment in sight along with a specific company visibility requirement in terms of ceiling and reported horizontal met visibility, both of which are more restrictive that the legal limits.
For example, we are established on the ILS 16R at 7 miles, in clear sight of the ground and assuming the localizer and G/S signals remain valid, we can continue to the airport....but we are not visual, nor would we call as such. I'm not remotely interested in what the director considers visual or otherwise, the crew flying the aircraft are the SOLE judge and arbiters' of this statement.