From Momentoo: Faces of Calvià

"My relation with chess is simple," says Fred Lucas. "I'm a photographer who is very fond of the game, loves the atmosphere at tournaments – it's if you can really feel all the ideas coming up on all those boards – and I loves to make pictures, especially with available light. What I like most when photographing chess players is to get their emotions that are otherwise hard to see, because life immediately proceeds to the next moment. Before the start of a game most players are busy with themselves, concentrating and some give you the impression that they really don't want to pay attention to anything else than the game to come."

We met Fred at the Chess Olympiad in Calvià. He walked around with his giant lens, one that had a relatively modest focal length (up to 200mm), but extreme light-gathering power.

He does own a flash, but just barely. In Calvià it wasn't working, and wasn't welcome. With the long range Mr Available Light was able to take some remarkable shots, which we share with you here. If you enjoy these pictures there are many more at Fred's Momentoo site. The URL is given at the bottom of the page.

The Faces of Calvià

Vassily Ivanchuk, Ukraine	Allor Chukwuka, Nigeria
Paridar Shadi, Iran	Velikhanli Firuza, Azerbaijan
Viktor Kortschnoj, Switzerland	Sergey Karjakin, Ukraine
Ulf Anderssen, Sweden	Farley Terry, Barbados
Alexei Shirov, Spain	Solis Gabriela, Bolivia
Jane Wambugu Wanjiru, Kenya	Evelyne Gichuru Wanjiru, Kenya
Boris Ferrufino, Bolivia	Elnami Abdalla, Libya
Severin Papa, Switzerland	Alexander Grischuk, Russia
Teimour Radjabov, Azerbaijan	Viswanathan Anand, India
Alexander Morozevich, Russia	Jhonny Chatjur Cueto, Bolivia
Xie Jun, China	Susan Polgar, USA

Magnus Carlsen, Norway

Irina Krush, USA

Links

• Momentoo – chess in available light
• Tea Lanchava: My life is a mix of beautiful dreams!
• Fred Lucas' Momentoo web site