Industrial Photography

entropic remnants

Hall of Famer
Name
John Griggs
I think what I'll do as I tend to take a lot of shots where I work is to consolidate them in one thread.

So, with that in mind, here are two I took today, and I'll just add as I go along to keep from cluttering up the board with various threads. Most of these will be with the little Panasonic LX7 which is pretty much always in my pocket so if I see something I can grab it.

If you do any industrial photography, feel free to drop you shots in here too!

8572268851_ec8f1c1d67_c.jpg

Ladle Handling: Ground Guidance by Entropic Remnants, on Flickr

8572269017_b2801cf8be_c.jpg

Ladle Handling: Vertical Vista by Entropic Remnants, on Flickr
 
I spent a few years working in a corporate engineering department. One of my tasks was traveling to factories with the engineers and take pictures at job sites. The prints were then used to supplement sketches and measurements.

I took thousands of shots on Tri-X, then printed them in my home darkroom. Nothing I did could match the digital shots you posted.

Really nice work!!
 
I spent a few years working in a corporate engineering department. One of my tasks was traveling to factories with the engineers and take pictures at job sites. The prints were then used to supplement sketches and measurements.

I took thousands of shots on Tri-X, then printed them in my home darkroom. Nothing I did could match the digital shots you posted.

Really nice work!!

Dennis, that is high praise indeed and I sincerely thank you!

I've played around with b/w film in the mill and I like some of the shots I got -- but they are more moody than high quality but sometimes that does work also.
 
I spooled the film from bulk, and printed myself to save the company some money. I was too much a tightwad to shoot color.

I wish I could have used my K-01!!

I am certain that they were fit to task. Engineering illustrations don't require you to go the extra mile usually. Digital cams have come a long way since back-in-the-day.
 
Don't have much in the way of Industrial Photography.

I do have this one though, a water wheel at Lake Hopatcong which raised/lowered the water level for the Morris Canal.

Photo's not taken with a Serious Compact, but is was taken with the amazing Pentax DA 15mm Limited, which was - and remains - both Serious & Compact!

state_park_water_wheel_9986.jpg
 
Thanks, Dennis. It was a good time for shootin' - late afternoon Autumn sun, gray clouds rolling in. This shot's one of my favorites, it hung in the local museum for a while.
 
I sometimes think that we photographers have a duty to record things. Industries change, and eventually fall into disuse. If we don't make records they're gone. Many years ago, my brother and I had student summer jobs in a glass factory that made bottles and glasses. It was a fascinating (and hot) environment, dominated by machinery that was at the end of it's useful life. Now and again when my brother and I reminisce about those days, we bemoan the fact that we took no photos because it's all gone and just lives on in memory. So hats off to the industrial photographers.
 
I sometimes think that we photographers have a duty to record things. Industries change, and eventually fall into disuse. If we don't make records they're gone. Many years ago, my brother and I had student summer jobs in a glass factory that made bottles and glasses. It was a fascinating (and hot) environment, dominated by machinery that was at the end of it's useful life. Now and again when my brother and I reminisce about those days, we bemoan the fact that we took no photos because it's all gone and just lives on in memory. So hats off to the industrial photographers.

My summer job as a college student was working in the engineering department of a company that built cabooses. It's gone now, and like you I didn't take a camera.
 
Don't have much in the way of Industrial Photography.

I do have this one though, a water wheel at Lake Hopatcong which raised/lowered the water level for the Morris Canal.

Photo's not taken with a Serious Compact, but is was taken with the amazing Pentax DA 15mm Limited, which was - and remains - both Serious & Compact!

I particularly like the colors and geometry -- but I love the window to the left that looks like a framed painting of a landscape hung on a wall. That little rectangle is a composition in its own right and makes a picture within a picture.
 
Not everyone is allowed to take photographs of the workplace. I got some special dispensation (or really a blind eye turned to some extent) after I was called on the carpet for some of the shots I posted online after our corporate offices complained about possible problems that could arise from the shots.

However, they also wanted to use a few of them in a regional advertising campaign, lol. So, they got the shots and I got permission to photograph things provided I complied with certain rules.

What I had planned was a series called "Steel Mill Portraits" because we have some amazing folks here -- but one of the guidelines is "no identifiable photos of employees" so that project had to be scrapped. I had already taken a few and one of them was used in the ad campaign. Here's that one but I only have it online at FB at a lower than usual resolution and copied it over to my website -- so this is it and it won't get too much bigger when you click it.

He is lit from a bath of molten steel off the right side of the picture and we were BOTH sweating, lol. Notice his helmet which has actually begun to burn off from the constant exposure to the radiant heat when he looks in at the hot furnace.

otto.jpg


I already had a bunch of cool ones, but that project is a bust as far as publishing.
 
Back
Top