Us & Themby
GeoffroComment by violinist123: The concept here isn't so bad. Besides the obvious interpretation of Us and Them that the chess board offers, there is also black verus white, male versus female, many against few, etc. So I think you started off with a decent concept.
Unfortunately your concept is then killed by a very poorly executed photograph.
First problem here is being able to see part of the table beneath the chess board in the upper right corner. That immediately screams "it's a sloppy shot and I just don't care".
I think the lighting could actually do ok as it is here. The way the shadows fall is sort of interesting, if they could be seen better. Increasing the contrast in the shot would help with this.
Focus is a big problem here. To me, you've not gone far enough with a limited depth of field. Either the white pieces should be more blurred or they should be in focus. Here, the foremost white pieces are just out of focus enough to look, well, out of focus. And not in a pleasing, fading-into-the-background sort of way. Just out of focus.
Angle this was shot at could also be changed and I think it would do the most towards really enhancing your shot as well as reinforcing the us verus the theme. If you got down a bit lower and shot this so the black king dominated the frame with a field of white enemies in the distance that would really look good. The angle used here just sort of looks like someone walked by a chess board and took a quick snapshot. Certainly any angle that hid the letters/numbers along the side of the playing area would be an improvement.
Again, I think you had a good idea here. You should spend some time shooting about a hundred different shots of it from different angles, change the lighting, change the setup of the pieces, etc. Find what really makes you go WOW and then that shot will probably make anyone else who looks at it go WOW as well. Well maybe. It is DPC after all heheh.
Good luck.
Photographer found comment helpful.