The Chess Match

Do you play to win Or for the love of the game?Life is how you play

They say no one knows you like you know yourself so I thought why not play myself in a game of chess and see who wins? So here it is. Chris vs. Dark CJ. The prize? My soul! ;)

More seriously I took these last night for some fun and to experiment a bit in Photoshop. I’d wanted to do a quirky self-portrait like this for a while and as I wasn’t doing much last night I thought it was the perfect time to try it.

Chris warns Dark CJ not to get cocky

Creating the images looks hard but it's actually quite easy and you can do it with any kind of camera, even a simple point and shoot. The most important thing is having a background that doesn’t move and using a tripod or a flat surface so the perspective doesn't change. You can then take as many photos of yourself in different positions as you want.

When it comes to combining the photos I use Photoshop CC but you can do it in Photoshop Elements or a number of other programs as well. You simply open the photos you want to combine, copy and paste them on top of each other, and then use a layer mask or an eraser tool to paint over/erase the sections where the other versions of 'you' would appear. Because the background itself never changes, you should end up with something like this.

Taking these was a lot of fun and has given me a few ideas for some other projects as well. I’m still not sure who would win the match though. I’d like to think Chris would but maybe Dark CJ might have more to play for. Might have to go best out of three. :)

I took a more normal self portrait as well which came out quite well too. Think I'll use this as my writer's photo for the year.

Photos and haiku © CJ Levinson 2016