Chess

NeilLNeilL Registered Users Posts: 4,201 Major grins
edited April 23, 2011 in Other Cool Shots
Comments welcome.:thumb



1
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2
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3
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4
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5
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Canon 40D 100mm Macro f2.8L IS USM

Neil
"Snow. Ice. Slow!" "Half-winter. Half-moon. Half-asleep!"

http://www.behance.net/brosepix

Comments

  • black mambablack mamba Registered Users Posts: 8,323 Major grins
    edited March 22, 2011
    I like what you've done here, Neil. To me, any effort to shoot a scene....or series of such....around the game of chess has to focus on the folks involved. I can feel the tension in the man in #2. The subtlety of just using the player's hands in the last several shots works well to create a sense of conflict....particularly in #4. This is not an easy event to photograph and impart to the viewer any real feel for the anxiety and drama that goes on. Kudos to you for doing a great job. clap.gif

    Tom
    I always wanted to lie naked on a bearskin rug in front of a fireplace. Cracker Barrel didn't take kindly to it.
  • NeilLNeilL Registered Users Posts: 4,201 Major grins
    edited March 22, 2011
    black mamba wrote: »
    I like what you've done here, Neil. To me, any effort to shoot a scene....or series of such....around the game of chess has to focus on the folks involved. I can feel the tension in the man in #2. The subtlety of just using the player's hands in the last several shots works well to create a sense of conflict....particularly in #4. This is not an easy event to photograph and impart to the viewer any real feel for the anxiety and drama that goes on. Kudos to you for doing a great job. clap.gif

    Tom

    Good to hear from you Tom! Thanks for the great feedback! This is partly an exercise in B&W conversion, and narrow DOF, and shooting on location, including lighting indoors at night under very bright fluorescent with flash. A challenge with the latter was to get some control of the bright ambient with HHS.

    A more artistic aim was to produce a theatrical effect with the hands and pieces, like ballet dancers on a checkered stage. I think that is only very partially achieved here with this lighting. I would have liked to be able to produce controlled shadows from the hands and pieces across the playing board. Not possible in a crowded public venue the way it was lit, and during a tournament! Those hands can move extremely quickly on an unpredictable instant after minutes of total inaction!eek7.gif

    There is something nice, for me, in the dialog between the hands, their shapes, and especially in their details, as they are expressing some idea in the mind of each player. It's a very attractive idea and challenge to get the highly cerebral tension of chess, two different minds engaged, expressed in two different sets of fingers!

    Neil
    "Snow. Ice. Slow!" "Half-winter. Half-moon. Half-asleep!"

    http://www.behance.net/brosepix
  • DogdotsDogdots Registered Users Posts: 8,795 Major grins
    edited March 22, 2011
    Facial expressions and hands ... they both speak volumes. Great shots thumb.gif
    Mary
    www.Dogdotsphotography.com
  • NeilLNeilL Registered Users Posts: 4,201 Major grins
    edited March 22, 2011
    Dogdots wrote: »
    Facial expressions and hands ... they both speak volumes. Great shots thumb.gif

    So nice to hear from you, Mary! Yes, you have understood my thinking perfectly! The results are part of the way there. A step towards something more compelling, I hope!

    Thanks for your comment!

    Neil
    "Snow. Ice. Slow!" "Half-winter. Half-moon. Half-asleep!"

    http://www.behance.net/brosepix
  • RichardRichard Administrators, Vanilla Admin Posts: 19,955 moderator
    edited March 24, 2011
    Good series that captures the tension and concentration of the game. The conversions are good and it looks like you managed the light well. Even though it's not the sharpest pic in the group, I think #4 is my favorite because it looks like both hands are in motion. Can't figure out what HHS is--did you mean high-speed sync? I'm a little surprised they permitted flash: Bobby Fischer would have gone ballistic lol3.gif.
    My Pics
  • NeilLNeilL Registered Users Posts: 4,201 Major grins
    edited March 24, 2011
    Richard wrote: »
    Good series that captures the tension and concentration of the game. The conversions are good and it looks like you managed the light well. Even though it's not the sharpest pic in the group, I think #4 is my favorite because it looks like both hands are in motion. Can't figure out what HHS is--did you mean high-speed sync? I'm a little surprised they permitted flash: Bobby Fischer would have gone ballistic lol3.gif.

    Great to read your comment, R! Yeah, typo, should have been HSS.rolleyes1.gif

    To be more exact, the first two shots were a tournament game and ambient light only. The others were a friendly game, and there I used bounced flash.

    There was motion blur in the tips of the fingers (on the pieces) in all of the last three. I have just had them printed, and for printing I sharpened just the fingertips again, so they had three or four iterations of sharpening, with different usm settings and with onOne Edge Sharpening. The fingertips came out brilliantly in the prints!

    The DOF is very narrow (f2.8 at 100mm), which was intentional, and also necessary in the light, and the miracle was that in these five shots, and a few others, the focus point was precisely where the hands went when I triggered. None of those hands were posed. There was absolutely no way I could predict which area of the board a hand would dart to, or when it would move, and with a DOF of a just a couple inches, the chances of getting focus on the fingers touching any piece over a board area of 400sqin in the space of a fraction of a second are bogglingly small!eek7.gifD

    Extreme photography?

    Neil
    "Snow. Ice. Slow!" "Half-winter. Half-moon. Half-asleep!"

    http://www.behance.net/brosepix
  • NeilLNeilL Registered Users Posts: 4,201 Major grins
    edited April 22, 2011
    Elsewhere, I just clocked up 3,333 posts, which as I said there, seemed a lucky number and redolent with daVinci mystery...

    Well, I also tonight came across images of these daVinci hand drawings. You might be as amazed as me about the echoes between them and my shots!eek7.gif

    1261208258_qsvbbF5-S.jpg

    1261208254_BRqThMd-S.jpg

    1261208259_rqFBpDN-S.jpg



    Neil
    "Snow. Ice. Slow!" "Half-winter. Half-moon. Half-asleep!"

    http://www.behance.net/brosepix
  • DogdotsDogdots Registered Users Posts: 8,795 Major grins
    edited April 22, 2011
    The similarities are amazing thumb.gif
    Mary
    www.Dogdotsphotography.com
  • NeilLNeilL Registered Users Posts: 4,201 Major grins
    edited April 23, 2011
    Dogdots wrote: »
    The similarities are amazing thumb.gif

    :D

    Hope you & yours are well Mary. Happy Easter!

    Neil
    "Snow. Ice. Slow!" "Half-winter. Half-moon. Half-asleep!"

    http://www.behance.net/brosepix
  • DogdotsDogdots Registered Users Posts: 8,795 Major grins
    edited April 23, 2011
    NeilL wrote: »
    :D

    Hope you & yours are well Mary. Happy Easter!

    Neil

    Happy Easter to you and yours too Neil :D
    Mary
    www.Dogdotsphotography.com
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