Of all the different types of assignments that I do, location work in heavy industry is by far my favorite. Half my work is travel assignment photography for magazines and book publishers or self assigned travel stock that I shoot for sale as singles and the other half is commercial photography for “end user” clients for use in websites, ads, brochures and annual reports. Of this, I could be doing anything from a corporate head-shot to detail shots of an office or retail location to architecture shots of company facilitates or on a drilling rig, diamond mine, natural gas pipeline or compressor station.

Although I could never pick just one thing, my favorite is still industrial work. I’m not really sure why. Some people think I’m crazy. Why would you want to walk around a drilling rig , up to your knees in mud taking pictures on a cold Alberta morning when you could be shooting sunsets on the Amalfi Coast or lavender fields in Provence? Believe me, I get asked this all the time. I guess it’s just that I’m comfortable with the people and the places that industrial photography draws me to. In another life (well this life actually but, you get the idea) I worked in industrial construction so, that might be part of it but, that’s too simple. I think it’s because there’s so much drama going on. Heavy equipment, hard bitten construction types, dirty hands, sunburned faces, all the things that go into building something bigger than yourself. It’s all happening right in front of me and building a picture that makes this look dramatic, interesting or heroic just seems so easy when there’s so much to work with.

Of course, it’s not easy at all. You try walking up to a gang of 240 pound, dirty, tired pipeliners standing around on a cigarette break and say “hi guys, can I take your picture?” You better be able to think on your feet.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 22nd, 2008 at 2:27 am and is filed under Industrial Photography, assignments, commercial photography.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.