The carpenter

[Manfred M]

We spent a good part of the day touring Upper Canada Village yesterday. This is a collection of old buildings, many of which were removed to this site during the construction of the St Lawrence Seaway, as they would have been destroyed by raising the river level.

This shot is the carpenter and the carpentry shop. Some of the interpretation guides are actually trained craftsmen. The carpenter in this image comes from the Isle of Wight in the UK. He became a carpenter's apprentice at the age of 15 and worked in the field for 45 years before becoming the "village carpenter".

I decided to stick with my ultra wide angle 14-24mm Nikkor f/2.8 for most of my shooting yesterday.

[ST1]

Excellent work Manfred, he looks a real character.


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[John 2]

Nicely captured Manfred. I enjoyed looking at this, not just for its photographic merit but also because of the content. That treasury of profiling planes on the shelves at the back (no routers here), the block planes under the bench and the knot free wood he has at his disposal which is becoming increasingly hard to find in the UK, is a feast. Nice shot. I don't suppose he agreed to pose for a portrait? He has one of those very interesting faces.

[bje07]

The large view is very good, too bad not to see better light through the windows and behind him.
Did you shoot in bracketting (3,5,7?) ?

[Mike Buckley]

Nicely captured Manfred. I enjoyed looking at this, not just for its photographic merit but also because of the content.

Completely agreed!

Every shop I have seen similar to this one, whether relating to working with metal or wood, seems so disorganized and needing a good clean-up.

[Manfred M]

The large view is very good, too bad not to see better light through the windows and behind him.
Did you shoot in bracketting (3,5,7?) ?

This is a single image shot that I opened up the shadows and downplayed the highlights with Photoshop / Nik ColorEfex.

Given the record amount of rain (and associated cloud cover) we had this year, I was more than willing to fight with a bit of sunshine.

[lovelife65]

I'd love to meet this man some day. Very cool photograph, leaving one to come up with many many stories

[rpcrowe]

Great use of wide angle...

[Shadowman]

Nicely done.

[IzzieK]

I love the shot, wherever you have found this carpentry scenery --- it would be nice to see. I love old tools and the guy looks like a character in a movie scene...

[Rob Ekins]

An amazing amount of detail from a single exposure Manfred.
What camera body were you using? I cant see any EXIF info.

I would de saturate some of the blue colour cast that is a result of the natural light source coming through the main window and maybe crop some of the foreground clutter.

My interpretation, feel free to delete.

[Manfred M]

An amazing amount of detail from a single exposure Manfred.
What camera body were you using? I cant see any EXIF info.

I would de saturate some of the blue colour cast that is a result of the natural light source coming through the main window and maybe crop some of the foreground clutter.

My interpretation, feel free to delete.

Thanks for the suggestions Rob. Your image is certainly a perfectly reasonable interpretation of the scene, and because it is a period shot, I briefly considered going monochrome (possibly a warm toned base, rather than pure B&W). I shot this with the D800 with the Nikkor f/2.8 14-24mm lens at 24mm. ISO 640 at 1/25th sec at f/5.0. I opened up the shadows and toned down the highlights in ACR before further processing in Photoshop (including Nik ColorEfex Pro filters (grad ND and Pro Contrast filters)).

The setting is 100% natural light (no artificial light at all in the the image). In addition to the two windows in the shot, the whole area to the camera right was open to the outside, i.e. the main shipping door that would let large items like the quilting frame in the foreground, be moved out of the shop. The darkened wood inside the shop has definitely modified the light, so even though it is pure natural light the shot has some aspects of a mixed light shot with the warm tones of the wood and the mid-afternoon sun coming in through the south-west facing windows.

I did try one crop at just about the same place you did, just to the left of the large black drill press, but found that the shot looked unbalanced, so left the second window in the image. While I would have preferred to have a shot without the quilting frame in it, I wanted to show the clutter; the shavings on the floor and block planes under the work bench. I would have liked to have included the wooden coffin (just outside of the shot, on the camera left side).

This site, unfortunately, has the downside of being very popular during weekends and the summer months, so there are barriers between the interpreters and the areas open to the public, so that did restrict the available shooting angles / positions.

[Mike Buckley]

There are lots of ways to compose this scene. For me, cropping to eliminate the foreground clutter and the ceiling removes a lot of the information that gives the scene its three-dimensional feeling.

[KimC]

This is such a wonderful image Manfred - I love everything about it, just as it is! Story telling with great emotion.

[mugge]

Manfred, your image is beautifully executed. The quite strong sunlight coming through the right window is just right to my mind.
Cheers Ole

[Dave A]

I absolutely love these kind of images and this one is done so well. Thank you for uploading it in large format, as you always do Manfred, because I love looking around the room at all the small things that are easily missed. So much to see here and the colors of the wood ceilings, walls, shelves, and much more are amazing.

Dave

[Jim A]

Terrific shot, Manfred. I very much like seeing the broad range as presented. I like seeing the "work-in-progress" as the front. Feel it would be equally as good in B&W, but think the colour is a VG choice.