Black and White Photo

Photographer’s Note

This is a second photo taken last Saturday of men playing chess on a plaza in Mill Valley, California. The players all seemed to know one another and easily moved from one game to the next. Perhaps the most striking of the players was a tall, handsome black man who wore a panama hat with a red band and sunglasses. When I captured this closeup I was struck by the fact a black man was busy capturing white pieces as his caucasian opponent was trying to capture black pieces. The black man holds a white piece he recently captured as he is about to make another move, either toward the clock or toward the board. Black and white playing black and white pieces on a sunny Saturday in California. I was pleased by the camaraderie in this group of men of diverse races and ethnicity who shared a passion for chess.

The image was slightly modified using Perspective to improve alignment of the table in relation to the frame. Otherwise it was the usual levels, shadows/highlights, increasing saturation a bit in yellow and green and application of USM. I hope you still have an appetite for chess.

omritoppol, manny, Galeota, ale, Burnham, jhm, avigur_11, Rinie_Hoff, joseelias has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

omritoppol (826) 2004-06-15 2:32

Hi Curtis,
I like this picture much better the previous. Great use of DOF to blur the background. Their hands & the clock add a very dynamic flavor to the shot. Great shot.

manny (21378) 2004-06-15 3:12

I like this a lot better than yesterday's. The closeup shessboard with the timer is interesting. A bit of motion blur in the hands is also interesting. Since your title is BW, whiy didn't you convert the picture to BW? Just a thought.

Galeota (10334) 2004-06-15 3:18

:o))) it's funny to read the two comments that have been made above..

This is so much better Curtis.. first of all you return to your style of decomposing your vision area to seize a detail, tightly cropped, which you come to manage perfectly. You return here to the type of photography where you excel.

And the second point, which is more a personal point of view, I find in this photograph EVERYTHING that my mind correlates to chess. This is a very dynamic photograph. Their hands, the clock, the close up on the board!!

Wow! YES!

ale (1819) 2004-06-15 4:02

Hi Curtis, I'm agree with the others, I prefer this one too. I think this closeup is more emphatic.
I like the pattern of the table too, very sharp!
Very well done!

Clochette (8076) 2004-06-15 4:23 [Comment]

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Burnham (2426) 2004-06-15 9:09

I like this just as much as the one from yesterday, not that they can really be compared. You said it yourself, this black and white repetition makes this really good. I think I would have liked an even more blurry background ( how dare I ;o), just to emphazise the action. Their hands look very much alike, with long slim fingers. Well, I like it. Glad to see Gal did so too :o)

jhm (82201) 2004-06-15 12:08

Placid place for play a game of chess Curtis, sharp and colourful picture. Well done!

avigur_11 (21271) 2004-06-15 16:05

Hi, Curtis. This is much better than yesterday's. the low angle, the close up on the board and on the clock, the hands are composed very good, with an excellent result. Very good shot.

Rinie_Hoff (9332) 2004-06-16 14:15

Hi Curtis, me too, I like this one better than yesterday's one, very dynamic and we're drawn inti the game, I like their hands, I got something with hands, can you go bakc next weeknd and make a close-up of the right guy's hands? ;-)

joseelias (367) 2004-06-17 7:50

Very nice image with a great warm color. Also a very good crop showing the essencial of the action...at least the visible one because their neurons aren't certainly resting! ;-)

Very well composed and balanced photo.