Two people hunched over a black and white checkered board, deliberating what moves they will make, how their opponent might counter and how they might counter that counter, with barely a flicker of emotion passing over their faces.

At first glance, it’s a sport that doesn’t seem the most vibrant or colorful or particularly dynamic, which makes the art of capturing its drama and excitement more complex than most sports photography.

Maria Emelianova is a leading chess photographer, tasked with traveling the world to document the highs and lows of the sport.

With over 10 years of experience, Emelianova has become proficient at capturing the slightest flicker of emotion or tension etched in the faces of the sport’s stars.

But even after years of experience, she finds it hard to put into words what makes it such a difficult profession to capture.

“That’s always a very difficult question,” Emelianova told CNN Sport when asked how she would describe the art of chess photography.

“It’s opening the very outliers in sports to a more general public through the eye of the camera. So like people who know very little of chess and of the personalities can kind of get very close to the game and feel like they are right next to this chess game.

“But I think if I knew the answer to this completely, I would probably have solved (it).”

‘Destiny’

Growing up in Russia, Emelianova began playing when she was a six-year-old, facing off against her grandfather until she joined a club to practice against her peers.

She earned her woman FIDE master status – awarded to players with an classical rating of at least 2,100 and is the third-highest ranking exclusive to women – in 2010.

She went on to become a professional chess player before taking a break from competitive chess. She did, however, make a brief return at the British Online Championship in December, 2020.

Emelianova switched her allegiances to the English chess federation in February, 2020, citing the affinity built with the organization during years of competitions in the UK and friends she made on the team as reasons for the change. She is also a staunch critic of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Her Elo rating peaked at 2,144 in 2004. The Elo rating system measures the strength of a chess player relative to their opponents. For context, Carlsen holds the record for the highest Elo rating ever achieved by a human player when he reached 2,882 in 2014.

Emelianova remembers her mother having a passing interest in photography.

“My mother was doing some photography stuff when she was younger in university, but it was analog photography,” Emelianova explained. “But I was quite fascinated with analog photos.”

Analog photography is the process of using cameras loaded with film and processing the photos in a laboratory afterwards using chemicals.

Emelianova continued: “I would find slides which she had stored from her student trips, and I would really like to go through them because all this stuff, of course, there was no Pinterest or Flickr or anything at the time.”

Emelianova’s life changed ahead of the 39th Chess Olympiad in 2010, which was held in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia.

She had been planning to go as a fan and to catch up with friends. At the time, she had been working as a journalist and translator for a magazine in Moscow, for which she occasionally was tasked with taking photos.

A few days before the Chess Olympiad, she was asked at a press conference if she wanted to take some photos at the tournament. Despite having limited experience and equipment, Emelianova accepted.

Emelianova said she had already booked a train ticket but was whisked to the event in a private plane. Then her friend allowed her to borrow his expensive camera equipment.

“At that time, at that moment, I was like: ‘Well, this cannot be a coincidence. There is something kind of like destiny to it, to have this happen,’” she said.

“So I took a lot of photos. I had no idea what I was doing, but I published them online, just on Instagram … And magazines were reaching out, asking for photos, and I sold enough to get my own camera.”

And from there, Emelianova has made it her aim to attend every major chess tournament as a photographer.

The skill

There’s more to chess photography than just setting up position and snapping. When she began, Emelianova explained, using cheaper equipment meant the shutter sound was louder when a photo was taken, possibly disturbing players.

“I was always trying to make sure that the moment in the game is either not as critical and I can take a photo where the player can hear me but won’t be too distracted, or I will do it when it’s a really important moment and very tense moment, but I would just try to time it with the move being made,” she said.

“So they are already making the move or I know that the position on the board is already simplified and, of course, playing chess myself helped to see those moments and see that this moment … the emotions are still there.”

Once she could afford better, quieter equipment, Emelianova got closer to the action.

With the access she gets at matches – she admits she’s had to battle organizers to trust her to not intrude on ongoing games – and her knowledge and relationship with players, she knows where and when to take her shots.

“The most important, I think, is that the players trust me to not overstep the boundary. And I also, myself, I sometimes have to even fight with myself like one part is a journalist and another is a chess player,” she said.

“And the journalist is like: ‘You need to come closer and get this moment’ and the player’s like: ‘No, no, you cannot do that.’ Sometimes, being a chess player also stops me from getting a better moment.”

When she approaches a game, Emelianova says she has a number of different cues she is looking for to get the best snaps.

She says that her experience as a former professional player allows her to identify from the flow of the game, or seeing the current setting, whether or not she needs to have her camera at the ready.

Outside of the game setting, Emelianova says she is constantly studying the players’ body language.

“Some of the players don’t really show anything. But I already know enough to even, like – to catch a really, really subtle head shake or sitting like too straight or pretending to be very relaxed,” she said.

“I think my favorite part is portraits, but portraits with emotions. They have to be in some moment, not just taken out of the context. But I think, mostly, it’s the reactions of the players, the emotions and the moments which define the decider of the tournament or the game or the match.”

Her personal knowledge of the players also helps her prepare. “Alongside with knowing the players as personalities and kind of knowing what to expect from each one of them depending on the situation, I can quite often be there before something even happens,” Emelianova said.

But even with all that prior knowledge and planning, luck plays a big part in her photography, she admits.

Despite knowing what she’s looking for, it doesn’t make the job any easier. She specifically remembers the skills she learned on a photojournalism course at Moscow State University, which helped her fine tune her craft.

She also says that her work now as a chess streamer has given her a great appreciation for chess photography, as it’s allowed her to approach and talk about her work in an open forum.

“The fact that it’s difficult to find something that stands out is a challenge enough to search for it and, when you find it, it’s like really redeeming and almost impossible to repeat,” Emelianova said, adding that her job “ignites a sparkle” in her.

“Of course, sometimes I also struggle to find something that makes me go: ‘Wow,’ after so many years. But I will still keep looking because, when I do find [it], especially when it’s a player who barely shows anything, they’re completely emotionless, that’s important.

“I think when you can make a story (is important). So like when somebody (who is) not from chess can look at the photos, not necessarily on text, but on the photos and read the story from there, that’s the most important thing.”

CBC Ottawa’s Creator Network is a place where young digital storytellers from diverse backgrounds can produce original video content to air on CBC and tell stories through their own lens.

Get in touch to pitch your idea, or check out our other Creator Network stories at cbc.ca/creatornetworkott.

When Faisa Omer switches on the bright lights and turns her camera on her subject, she knows the power of her lens to highlight the good, the bad and the stories of those who step into her spotlight. 

The 31-year-old photographer and mental health counsellor says she was blown away by the response to her first major photography project, which shed light on the racism her brother and his friends had experienced growing up Black in Ottawa community housing. 

That led to gallery exposure and Omer’s photos being put on display in the mayor’s office, as well as her decision to expand the project across other communities across Ottawa, which she and videographer Hersi Osman documented for CBC Ottawa’s Creator Network.

Only this time, Omer decided to focus not just on the challenges and difficulties faced by Black youth, but also what makes them proud.

“Sometimes the trauma we go through kind of becomes who we are.… That’s what [people] see, what they remember,” explained Omer.

Telling that complicated story through images has become the photographer’s goal.

“We’re more than just these negative experiences that occur to us. We also have joy, we’re complex, just like other people, right? I wanted to showcase that and their hopes and dreams instead of just the negative side of the spectrum.”

Rooted in Ritchie

Omer’s first project started in the summer of 2020, when she asked her brother Abdullah, then 17, and his friends to pose in her family’s Ritchie Street basement.

She posted the photos to Instagram alongside the first-person stories they’d shared of their experiences being Black and growing up in a neighbourhood that’s often in the headlines for the wrong reasons. It touched a nerve. 

“One of the main sentiments that I felt from the community was how these stories were important. These photos had the power to change minds and attitudes towards Black people,” she said, adding she couldn’t keep up with the outpouring of messages of support.

For her, it seemed natural to keep going.

After garnering a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts, she decided to take the idea to three more neighbourhoods — Lowertown, Michele Heights and Overbrook, basing her operations in each area’s community house, hoping that would help young people feel comfortable and safe to share.

On camera, participants opened up on everything from what it’s like to have your photo taken, to how to respond when you’re repeatedly asked, “Where are you from?”

Shaunette Simon opted to share a message for the next generation.

“My hope is that my grandkids will be able to come into this world and be able to be kids … and not fear that they’re going to prejudged and things are going to be denied to them because of the colour of their skin, something that they can’t change.”

Omer says she was surprised and saddened by the difficult stories she heard, including one woman’s experience of suffering a brutal beating at 16 during her first year in Canada, which resulted in her losing a year of school, and what it felt like to learn later on that the case had been dropped. 

Osman also said he was surprised by the depth of pain their subjects shared.

“They were telling personal stories about their first encounter with police,” he said. “They got pretty deep in terms of their responses of what it means to be Black.”

He said he expected the 12-year-olds to care more about what they had for lunch or the activities at the Boys and Girls Club, but they all had their own experiences to add.

“They’re not as sheltered as we thought they were,” Osman said. 

Timing in Lowertown

There were particularly difficult moments in Lowertown, where the scheduled photography session happened shortly after a shooting in front of the community house where an 18-year-old was killed.

Omer says it became an opportunity for people in that neighbourhood to talk and share what that feels like.

“I was thinking, this is when the community wants their voice heard,” she said. “Let me see what this neighbourhood wants the rest of Ottawa to know about them right now.”

As a psychotherapist, Omer says the sessions became not just about the photos, but also helping the youth process a traumatic event and validate their feelings about it.

“You have to stop and give them that respect .. that eye contact while they’re speaking, ‘I can’t believe that happened, I’m sorry,'” she explained, adding that hearing those stories was hard on her, too, but talking it over with her siblings always helped.

Still, Omer says she came away from the project seeing the pride the youth had in their neighbours and communities — a sentiment echoed by Osman.

“There’s a lot of bad press when it comes to certain neighbourhoods in the city and people don’t see the positive side of it,” he said. “This was something that was going to shed light on neighbourhoods that don’t really get the limelight that they deserve.”

New home, new job

Since wrapping up this project, Omer has started a new chapter of her life. In January, she began a new job as a counsellor at Carleton University.

Her family also moved to a newly built home in Findlay Creek this May, with enough room for their parents and all seven siblings,six of whom are over 20 — a bittersweet change for Omer.

“I feel like if you live somewhere for more than two decades, it definitely becomes part of your identity,” she said.

“I’m proud to be from Ritchie, and all the other neighbourhoods that I grew up in, because it made me who I am today.” 

A leading photographer has warned that the latest developments in image editing software using Artificial Intelligence (AI) could create “an alternative reality, a fake reality”.

The makers of Photoshop have recently introduced something called “generative fill”, which uses AI to create parts of an image that do not actually exist in real life.

But Simon Hill, who is president of the Royal Photographic Society and is based in North Yorkshire, says while he has concerns about the use of AI in photography, “the technology isn’t all bad”.

Adobe, the company behind Photoshop, says it wants to “empower users” with the latest software incorporating AI.

Video by Jacob Tomlinson