Shadows And Memories

There are two reasons why I ended up doing this update.  The first one was because I felt like playing around with some shadows while the sun was rather bright the other day.  Reason number two we'll get to in a few moment.  I guess that taking photographs of a chess set falls into my personal belief of photographing everything and that anything can make an interesting photograph.  The main subject of these photos aren't the chess board or the pieces, but rather the shadows that the pieces cast.  I took the board out and placed it by the window that had the most sun coming in.  I then placed the pieces on the board and began to make several moves, but making sure not to eliminate any of the pieces.  I suppose that I could have made things a little bit less cluttered by eliminating some of the pieces, but I didn't want to have any pieces missing from the photo, not did I want to just line up the eliminated pieces on the side of the board.  I then rotated the board a little bit so that I'd get the largest shadows possible and then began to shoot away.  I shot the first photograph while standing over the board and shooting down at it.  I liked the way that the shadows stretched out from the pieces.  This shot was taken at f/9, 1/50sec, ISO 100 at 34mm.  I used a small aperture to make sure that as many pieces as possible would be in focus.  For the second photograph, I kind out went the opposite way.  I wanted a close-up look at one of the pieces and it's shadow.  This photograph was shot at f/3.2, 1/400sec, ISO 100 at 28mm.  If I could do it again, I'd probably want to redo this shot using a Macro lens.  For the third photograph, I again wanted to get the entire board in the shot, but using a larger aperture in order to blur out the background.  No need to showing you all my living room chair.  This photograph was shot at f/5.6, 1/125sec, ISO 100 at 28mm.

Now, if I could be serious for a moment.  I mentioned earlier that there were two reasons why I ended up doing this update.  The second one is a little more personal.  The chess set that I used to take these photographs was a Christmas gift given to me many years ago when I was 8 years old.  It was given to me by my Aunt Juliette, or Tante Poulette as we called her.  I was just learning how to play chess in school and a set was something I was really hoping to get.  Sadly, my aunt passed away last week after a very courageous fight against cancer.  This chess set will probably stay with me for the rest of my days, and with it, will always be the memory of the person who gave it to me.  Tante Poulette, merci beaucoup pour le jeu d'échecs.  That Christmas memory, and you along with it, will always remain with me.