Your Best Portraits

This image was captured in the evening at a Christmas market in Hamburg. There were many stalls and this man was stamping metal souvenirs. He was positioned back in the covered stall making the items for his colleagues to sell.
The bright light in the shadows caught my attention and I watched him work for a while and waited for him to concentrate on his task, then took the shot. I used motor drive so I could capture the hammer in the position I preferred.
The market was busy, so I had to choose my moment carefully to avoid passersby encroaching into the shot. The lighting was difficult so I knew I needed a fairly high ISO to get the depth of field and movement that I wanted.
I converted the image into black and white, I lightened the wood on the left of the image using the dodge and burn tool and increased the contrast, to remove any distractions in the background.