When you visit Fes, Morocco’s first and oldest capital, one of the must see areas is the tanners (debbarhine) district. These venerable institutions have been smoothing and dying leather -one of the cities famous specialties- in the same way since the 11th or 12th century. The fellas change, nothing else does (ok, the hose isn’t quite that old, but you get my drift).

An apprentice watches as leather is being dyed

Here is I used the repeating patterns of the dying vats to provide a point of interest and anchor my composition. The gentleman in the red shirt was just icing on the cake. In post processing I pushed tonal contrast a little bit to really bring out the gritty feel of the place.