Person at Work: Making Frames (3B)

A tiny, low-lit room, no larger than the one of the two guitar players (PAW-2A), is the setting for this new round. We are in the workshop of a framer, a Jew of Moroccan origins who moved to Jerusalem soon after the birth of the state of Israel. He works there with his son, producing wood frames of all sorts and kinds. This time, given the very small space, I went with a 30mm lens, and it worked much better than the 50. At least, I could try to capture a scene, rather than a blown-up portrait or detail. After the first few shots, I realized I had almost become invisible... The man was very concentrated in his work and did not really bother with anything else. Perfect condition to do the same. Light was difficult and not very pleasant. Two white neon tubes were lighting the room from a very low ceiling, creating some spots of intense light and leaving other areas in complete darkness. Inevitably, I guess, the white hair on the framer's head was violently hit by this whitish light, and it turned "hot" in the frame. Still, after some checks, I managed to find the best aperture for the place: f 6.3 at 400 ISO. This would allow a reasonably fast shutter:1/50 sec. In terms of exposure, the frames taken with these settings turned out to be the best. In the end, I feel that a good deal of my energy is going in "reading" light conditions and finding the most appropriate settings. I must say it is an exercise I like. But it leaves me with less time to focus on the scene, on the details to be left in or cut out. When I look back at some pictures, several times I realize I find details I had not noticed on the spot. As interesting as this might be, I hope to be able to reduce this kind of surprises by increasing my level of awareness when shooting.