Top Five Board Game Photos of 2020
Intent: Inspire you to try out some board games and learn a bit about our process of doing board game photography.
Well it’s been over three months since we’ve started our journey. As the year comes to a close, we find ourselves reflecting quite a bit over our shared experience. One of the reasons we started Kovray, is to explore my passion of photography. I found myself taking pictures of board games over the year and decided that maybe it’s time we share some of these with the world to inspire more folks to play games? I had such a great experience over the past three months taking pictures, teaching Ilya what I know about photography and really sharing a lot of great memories!
Well, we sat down and decided to pick our five favorite pictures that we took this year. It wasn’t an easy process whatsoever, and I’m certainly nervous to attempt to do this next year where the amount of pictures will be significantly larger as here we’re only looking at three month worth, rather than an entire year!
Let us know which pictures of ours you liked best on our various social media pages and thanks for following along our journey. I’m certainly looking forward to next year where we can reflect, choose our top five of 2021 and see our growth (hopefully) over the year.
Let’s take a look at these pictures shall we?
Viscounts of the West Kingdom
Why Top Five?
Highly anticipated game for us. We were thrilled to get and play Viscounts of the West Kingdom, as Paladins (which is part of the trilogy) is one of my favorite games.
Games with many components such as Viscounts are a blast to photograph as the game allows for many opportunities for creativity. However, games with a small amount of components are just as incredible because they really push and challenge you to think creatively.
The colour scheme here allows the first player token to really pop and be the centre piece of the photo, although there’s a lot involved and little white space, your eyes are drawn to the Viscount.
Mysterium Park
Why Top Five?
The art and details in every card and component is absolutely stunning! Taking pictures for this game seemed like a must and the results did not disappoint.
This picture in particular was taken right after I had learned some new techniques about product photography. It was an awesome feeling to see something like creating diagonal lines come together to create a picture like this. Learning is fun!
Focusing on this particular component provides this sense of mystery because it does not necessarily give much away in terms of gameplay. It almost acts as a teaser to invite you and peak your curiosity about the game.
Raiders of Scythia
Why Top Five?
You might have noticed a pattern but I enjoy focusing on particular components. It brings intrigue and curiosity into the pictures.
Having so many components really lets you avoid white space and when you combine that with a low field of depth I think it really draws the eye and makes this photo fun to look at!
Raiders was another game we were really looking forward to playing. It has beautiful art and all the components are well thought out to fit the theme of the game.
Wingspan Expansions
Why Top Five?
The blog for this picture was about communications so it was a chance to push creative boundaries and ask myself what bridges the gap between communication and board games.
The inspiration from this photo came from some business stock photos I had previously used in a presentation during one of my summer jobs. It was very neat to see how my past experiences helped shaped my creative thinking.
This picture was much different from any picture we have taken so it holds a special place in my heart. It was a chance to think outside the box and try something new!
New York Zoo
From: New York Zoo Review
Why Top Five?
Outside of this picture looking amazing, it was a sweet moment for both of us. Ilya took this photo and he was so excited when he finally took this shot. I try to take my time and show him my thought process or how I do something so watching him progress felt super rewarding!
I love the colours in this photo and the white space really contrasts this photo to make it pop that much more.
There is something about the crowding of the animals that really speak volumes to the community we are building when playing this and other board games. It speaks to more than just the game!
What pictures would you like to see from us?