Daniel Pietzsch

How I took the shot: Part 2.

This photo was taken last June on a bus ride back from Nice to our campground. The challenge with this one was to be observant, quick and shooting in a moving vehicle while having other things to do, too.

After I got onto the bus, I took a read from my exposure meter on my iPhone to get a ballpark exposure for the bus’s interior. I preset my exposure to f/1.4 and 1/60th of a second (for my APX 400 film). I rarely shoot this lens at its maximum aperture, but this time I decided to do so, because I was on a moving bus and wanted to avoid motion blur.

I noticed this woman and I sensed she might make an interesting subject matter: she seemed tired and generally exhausted from the day. Because this was the most promising scene, I preset the focus already, too, using a person or object at the same distance¹.

Then it was time to wait. It was a long bus ride.

And it took a while, but the waiting paid off. She had her hand over her eyes like this for maybe one to two seconds. Luckily I noticed. And because my Leica was around my neck, ready to shoot, I quickly raised it to my eye and took this photo.

Inside, I quietly went: “YES!”