“For me, as a photographer, the most beautiful thing is to report on a chess tournament and the emotions that players show throughout.”
– Lennart Ootes
In every tournament, there is more than just the games. There is a world of emotion, stories and moments which are captured by brilliant photographers like Lennart Ootes. The Dutch creative has immortalized the intensity of chess in 38 countries so far and has become a fixture of tournaments around the world. Though primarily known as a photographer, Ootes is becoming a driving force in chess broadcasting as well.
Three months a year, he is at the Saint Louis Chess Club. From Calcutta to Norway, Ootes attends about 25 tournaments worldwide every year. “I have a huge drive to create something,” says Ootes. “Often, I do two things at the same time. I operate the DGT boards and I take photos.” In addition to these, he has expanded his line of work to include the creation of websites for the tournament as well as live video broadcasting.
Whether he is capturing the raw moments of a match, or developing new livestreaming technology, Ootes is contributing to reshape how we follow tournaments nowadays.
Photography
Photography contributes in several ways to the chess world, says Lennart Ootes. Photographs enrich tournament reports and are important for promoting chess. “It gives a historical perspective. For example, you can see who Bobby Fischer was or what tournaments looked like decades ago.”
Dozens of websites and magazines like New In Chess and American Chess Magazine buy Ootes’ photos. Members of the public can purchase them for personal use for a modest amount. His site chessphotoshop.com contains his whole archive with more than 65,000 photos. Most of them were taken at tournaments.
Currently, the Max Euwe Center in Amsterdam exhibits some of his photos. Ootes says, ‘The turnover of selling to private people is extremely low. But people can see all the photos and enjoy viewing them.’
Pinpointing his most beautiful photo is impossible, says Ootes. “That depends on news value, personal preference, etcetera.” Since chess is often played in fairly dark environments, taking photos can be a battle against light conditions. “It is a challenge. It is about craftsmanship as well as creativity. For me a photo is great if it tells a story.’
Rachael Li – John Urschel, St Louis 2017. Photo: Lennart Ootes.
But how did Ootes get into photography?
He got interested when he did a kind of internship in 2011 at the public relations department of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Working with art-oriented people proved to be very inspiring.
Other chess photographers have been an inspiration as well. From Misha Friedman, who made a series on the social and cultural aspects of chess, to David Llada, who published The Thinkers. Llada showed how powerful eyes can be in a composition. “Eyes can look into space or together with a part of a face can show tension. Eyes can be the beginning of a story of emotion.”
Ootes never had formal training as a photographer. He is an autodidact and likes to discover things himself. To develop his skills, he watched hundreds of YouTube videos. That way he learned about technique and how to think as a photographer. “For example, to choose different perspectives.” And of course, one has to practise endlessly.
In 2018, he won the photography contest of the Russian Chess Federation. Getting this award motivated him to think more thoroughly about how to make chess photos.
Ootes continues to explore new perspectives and ways to improve his photography. His girlfriend, a flight attendant from Mexico, has contributed to this endeavor. She provides feedback on his photographs, insisting he pays attention to how a bottle of water on a table can be distracting or how he should zoom in more in certain cases. “Her observations have helped me refine my sense of composition,” he reckons.
Playing Chess
In his youth, Ootes played a lot of chess along with his younger brother, IM Lars Ootes. For a few years, they played on the BSG team in Bussum, in the highest league (Meesterklasse) in the Netherlands. Lennart achieved his peak rating of 2217 in 2011, when he almost scored an IM norm.
In 2011 he arrived at a Dutch League game in Leiden without any preparation, and that made him decide to quit competitive chess. Maybe because he didn’t feel it as a burden anymore, Ootes played relaxed and beat IM Eelke Wiersma. “But I have never won a very good game. When I beat strong opponents it was in complicated positions where I managed to swindle.”
Since 2012, and due to his other activities, he has been less active as a chess player.
Ootes, who holds the title of FIDE International Organizer, recognizes that being a strong player helps him understand games and tournaments. Because of his insights and experience, he often knows where he can expect interesting moments to take a photo.
There is a downside though in this era of fair play and anti-cheating measures. “During the Grand Tour tournaments I am an official photographer. That means that I can take photos at all times, for example during all parts of the games. But if I suddenly start taking photos of a specific moment in a game it can be interpreted as influencing games. The suspicion is that I could have seen with an engine that something is happening and, by showing up, I might be alerting players to critical moments. For me, the possibility of such suspicions makes chess photography less fun, so I have moved away from photography.”
3-Check Chess
At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Lennart Ootes started to play a variant of chess, 3-Check Chess. Hereby one wins after giving three checks. Ootes spent a lot of time analyzing and with the help of chess engines, developed opening ideas. “As a chess player I have nothing to add to chess knowledge, but with 3-Check Chess I can. It is unknown territory. I could deliver some added value. It is nice to see people still play my openings.”
One such opening is the Politeia variation: 1.e4 e6 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.Nf3 f5. “If I get some time I will consider making a Chessable course about 3-Check Chess.”
Streaming
During the 2024 World Championship match in Singapore, Ootes worked with a team of five people who created the FIDE live commentary of the match. An initiative of Menno Pals and Ootes, iMotion had the exclusive right to put cameras in the playing venue and send the video feeds to platforms like Chess.com and ChessBase India.
“We have been doing this now for one and a half years. During the Olympiad in Budapest we had 160 cameras. Some are very small and put on the board between the pieces. I can put a lot of creativity into this.”
Nowadays iMotion is the main activity of Ootes. “During the first ten days in Singapore I didn’t take one single photo. The iMotion technique we developed during the last year is fantastic. Through various algorithms we can show all kinds of game data during broadcasts. And cameras are switched automatically when another player is to move. About 125,000 people are watching all over the world. Fantastic!”
Ootes looks into the future of livestream. “One of the next steps we can develop is to detect where players are looking. It would be great if an algorithm can indicate or even predict what are the candidate moves a human player considers during a game. Such data could maybe make it possible to look into the brain of a player.”
Signature Hair
Why does Ootes always have colored hair?
“I’ve done it for fifteen years now. I was studying applied physics in Enschede and some of my fellow students were going bald quickly. Then I thought that could happen to me too. Let me do something fun with my hair while I still have it. GM Dimitri Reinderman is, like me, from Hoorn. He also used to have colored hair. Maybe Dimitri was an influence too.”
Giving Back
Besides all his professional activities, Lennart Ootes regularly does things for free or for an expense allowance. He is one of the coordinators of the Dutch chess site Schaaksite.nl and hosts the Dutch chess podcast De Schaakpod along with chess organizer Hicham Boulafha and stand-up comedian FM Tex de Wit.
Ootes has also been a webmaster for the famous Batavia Tournaments in the Amsterdam pub of Peter Tames. Also, he assists at the Science Park tournament in Amsterdam and the Hoogeveen Chess Tournament. The reason is simple: “I’m doing financially well in the chess world and it is nice to be involved in inspiring initiatives that have no strong financial basis. Also, I don’t spend much time in the Netherlands, so it is a nice way to stay involved in the Dutch chess scene.”
“Chess brought me a lot, a passion for photography, work, and many nice experiences,” Ootes reflects.
Ootes continue to explore new ways to capture chess tournaments and chess players. Through his iconic photos or immersive broadcasts, he goes beyond documenting chess. He is enhancing our connection to it. “Looking for action, emotions, and news value are still my strengths,” he says.