Chess

Chess

Hi Stephen, I like this in black white... is this a wide lens or did you use pinhole camera?

6/6

It's a 16mm Zenitar fisheye lens. I was going to use my 17mm or 24mm lens, but discovered after I had the shot set up that they weren't wide enough to include the top of Mark's head, so I had to go to the fisheye. And then that was too wide side-to-side, so I had to crop a bit at the sides.

First, I wanted to thank you for your interesting comment on Primary World. I may play with it a bit tho I am basically happy with the foto. All works are works in progress as we useta say in the poetry scene...

I like the lens choice here and the B&W...very well done!

Mark's pieces appear to be well-developed at this point, but if I were him, I would be greatly concerned about the lack of King-side pawns. Castling Queen-side may have been a better choice unless the pawns were lost after the castle. White would do well to focus it's efforts toward this weakness. (A bunch of people who don't play chess are reading this thinking, "What on Earth is he talking about?".)

 

I like this shot. The fisheye is an excellent choice here and so is the B&W. Mark's concentration sets the mood perfectly. I love the fact that the lone black piece in the image appears to be taking all the attention. Mark is obviously focused on it and the viewer is continuously drawn to it. It's almost as if the entire White army is eyeballing that one Knight.

 

Great shot. You can expect to see a shamelessly plagerized version in my gallery someday. :)

 

(I'd move the f3 Knight with the intention of pushing the Pawn to f3.)

Keith- a note on set-up if you want to plagiarize it (feel free, by the way)- I was trying to get a shot looking up from the chessmen's point of view. I used the dining room table for this shot. I took the center leaf out of the table, and put the tripod there. I folded the chess board in half to get it out of the way of the camera. I had planned to use my 24mm lens, which focuses quite close, but when I tried that it, I couldn't get Mark's head in the shot, and had to go wider to do that. Only when I did, it showed the edge of the table and bent chess board at the edges, so I had to crop that out. Done properly, I would have arranged a nice background to the shot as well. All in all, it probably would have worked just as well to just set the camera on the board.

 

I'm no chess expert, but I did actually set the chess men up and play them to a point where they were distributed around a bit. So maybe they aren't in a "good" position, but they are actually in a playable position. Mark was just giving me a thoughtful look, as by the time he got there, half the board was gone.

I would never have thought to take the leaf out of the table. Good idea. Yeah, all my chess verbage was for fun. :) I may try that shot sometime. Haven't pulled the chess board out in a while...