This week I had a idea for an image and decided to try out some ideas to see how to realise my thoughts. The idea was a chess set lit from below and the front with a black background . The chess set would be glass as the pieces could then light up.
I set up the shot on my desk using a bit of a photo hack to experiment. I placed my flash in the box pointing up with the glass chess board on top of the box and then placed black card to the back and on top. Using my camera with a remote trigger I could shoot the image setting off the external flash.
The above image was composed using the Diagram from S Loyd 1859 chess diagram. I processed the image in Lightroom using basic adjustments and converting the image to black and white. The image was already monochrome in tone before editing, even so I wanted the image to be black and white.
What I like is the tone and lighting of the image and I think lighting from below works really well, spotlighting the scene.
I don’t like the dust and to fix this I will need to clean the board and chess pieces between each composition to save extra work in post production.
Let me know what you think in the comment box below.
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It works really well. I find that ‘playing around’ like this usually turns out to be a good learning exercise – if for nothing else than a little dusting 🙂
awesome photo Ben…
Thanks Heather I am glad you like it.