The Glassmaster

I took this photograph in a small workshop where the air was thick with heat and the faint scent of molten silica. The man at the bench was a veteran glassblower, his movements so fluid they seemed choreographed—every rotation of the blowpipe, every precise turn of the wrist, shaped the glowing mass at its tip into something delicate and exact.

In composing the image, I wanted to give space to the environment. This wasn’t simply a portrait; it was a record of a craft. The cluttered benches, the brick furnace, the scattered tools—these were as much a part of the story as the craftsman himself. I framed him slightly off-centre, allowing the viewer’s gaze to move naturally from his concentrated face to the shimmering, still-forming piece of glass, and then to the organised chaos of his surroundings.

Technically, this was a challenge of light management. The scene had two competing sources: the natural daylight from the window and the warmer, more diffuse glow from the furnace area. I leaned towards preserving the natural skin tones, letting the warm reflections off the wood and brick lend a richness without overwhelming the detail. The exposure had to balance the bright highlights on the glass with the deep shadows in the corners—too much in either direction, and the subtle tonal range of the workshop would be lost.

There’s no glamour here, no staged perfection—just the quiet intensity of a man at work, performing a skill that demands both strength and delicacy. For me, that’s where the photograph’s strength lies: in showing the mastery of a craft that still depends entirely on the human hand and eye.