Industrial photography can be characterised as photography that captures industrious work, which is defined as someone who works hard, or even very hard.
The Brazilian photographer, Sebastiao Salgado, created the seminal work on industry in the 1990s with his book, Workers, which captured the people who work with their hands and tools who are vital to the health of local, national and global economies.
All too often we associate the word ‘corporate’ or ‘business’ with images of smartly dressed people in offices sat behind desks. We overlook (and fail to celebrate) the contribution of the millions of engineers, mechanics, fitters and machine operators, who balance precision and craft with wielding hammers, wrenches, and the push-and-pull of machinery.
As someone who sits at a desk or is behind a camera most of the time, I’m in awe of people who can make, build and craft stuff; as such, I love being asked to do industrial photography.
Whisky maturation
Whisky, as we spell it in the UK, or Whiskey if you’re outside of the UK, is matured in casks, commonly known as barrels.
What is now a traditional method of maturating spirit stems from the World War and the introduction of a law that prohibited the sale of raw spirit for three years, in an attempt to clamp down on drinking alcohol. The upshot was the discovery that the spirit tasted better and was less fiery when it was left to mature and so an industry was born – the cooperage.
A Cooper is someone who makes and repairs casks. In Scotland the majority of whisky is matured in ex-bourbon casks which have been made using new American oak. Other casks include ex-sherry, ex-port, ex-wine, ex-rum casks but these tends to be fewer compared to the vast numbers of American oak casks shipped from the US to be re-used for Scotch whisky.
When these shipments arrive they go to a cooperage where they are inspected, repaired, rebuilt and made ready for the whisky industry.
Speyside Cooperage
I’ve spent numerous days on industrial photography assignments at the Speyside Cooperage not far from Stirling in Scotland.
Here, men (and I’ve not yet seen a woman), plane, hammer, drill, knock, smooth, fill and move in perpetual motion as they work on one cask after another throughout the day.
“I don’t have any trouble sleeping” one of them told me, and not surprising when you see the enormous effort involved when hammering steel rings into place to ensure the casks are watertight.
It’s a production line that requires skill, precision and craftsmanship, where machines only do the jobs that can be automated to save time and effort. The noise is at times deafening, the smell is a heady mixture of alcohol and wood shavings. Each person works alone, responsible (and accountable) for the quality of their own casks, only handing them over to be tested for their seals before they are rolled out into the yard awaiting delivery.
Industrial Photography celebrates workers
Industrial photography is hugely satisfying because it is a celebration of work that is often hidden away behind warehouse doors and high fences whilst we imagine that ‘real’ work is represented by presentations and smartly dressed people handling tablets and laptops as they stride along brightly lit corridors of steel and glass buildings.
To photograph industry is a reminder that skilled manual work is still alive; and necessary. Yet few companies think of documenting the work they do, or celebrating the workers who do it, through photography.
Industrial photography goes beyond merely documenting machinery and equipment; it aims to showcase the harmony between man, tools and machine, the details of production processes, and the scale of industrial workplaces.
With a creative eye, industrial photography can create images that find the beauty and complexity inside factories, warehouses, construction sites and similar.
The world is built on the shoulders of industrious workers, we owe to them to acknowledge the work they do and share it with the world.
Interested in talking about industrial photography?
It can be difficult to imagine how your workplace might look when documented by an industrial photographer because you see it everyday and your emotional connections will be different. If you are curious about industrial photography and how you could use it for your business then please get in touch and let’s have a no obligation chat.
