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Industrial Photography
I am at the bottom of a 2,600 ft mineshaft in a Cheshire salt mine. As we leave the lift area I scan my helmet light around a vast cavern, the roof is 30 ft high, wall-to-wall is about 40 ft. The tunnel disappears into a very black distance. To my surprise my light picks out a yellow transit van. We climb in and set off at around 25-30mph, driving easily over the smooth floor. Our headlights pick up the tunnel ahead, behind us only blackness punctuated by the dim red glow of our taillights. We drive for about 15 minutes, covering several miles until we arrive at the working face. Here, the huge machines I have come to photograph are hard at work cutting rock salt from the walls. As we leave the van the change in atmosphere is amazing. The air is now thick with salt dust and although the temperature is the same the noise is now deafening.
The cutting machine I have come to photograph is massive and the problems of photographing it are many. This is probably an example of industrial photography at its purist! Before tackling the salt mining machine, let's look at some of the problems, reasons and requirements of Industrial Photography.
Most companies have a need of good quality photographs of the factory, office, production line, warehouse, chemical plant, oil rig, mine etc to illustrate their corporate brochure, company reports and advertising. These images help to show potential clients just what type of company they are, what they manufacture and what their capabilities are. For the photographer arriving at a site it is important to know in advance what the photographs are to be used for and just what image of the company they are meant to portray. Considerations
In some types of industrial plants the use of electronic or bulb flash may be prohibited. This may be due to the products or atmosphere being flammable or even explosive. Also bear in mind that in some cases some types of airborne dust such as flour or cement, can be explosive.
Power - Most factories work on 110/115 volt or 3 phase power supplies, with 240 volt often only available in office areas. Extension lead can sometimes be used, but often the distance is to far or they are not allowed under Health & Safety regs. I have a small portable generator that can power my lights, however in some factories this is not permitted either so flashguns and/or available light may be the only solution. People - It has been said that a companies most important
asset is it's workforce. For many industrial photographs it is important
to include people. They bring an industrial shot to life by adding human
interest and helping to show the viewer how a machine or process works.
They can also give scale to a photograph (note the man on the cutting
machine in the Salt Mine).
Lighting - You could fill a text book with information on lighting industrial subjects, so here are just a few of the basics. The colour balance of the film and of the available light, plus any light the photographer may add, is fundamental to achieving a good result. If you are only photographing a relatively small area then flash or tungsten light can be used to light just the area you want, then by exposure control, let the background go black. On larger shots you may need to balance both the exposure and colour balance of the background with any foreground lighting you may add. One method is to use additive/subtractive lighting - let's say you want to dramatically light the foreground subject with flash but need the rest of the factory behind to be in the background. The lighting in the factory is fluorescent lights. First use a colour temperature meter to find the correction factor for the fluorescent lights - let's say it's a nice easy CC40 Magenta. If you just put a CC40M filter on the camera lens the flash part of the image would have a 40 magenta cast, although the background would be fully corrected. So, you need to 'subtract' the 40M from the flash exposure. This can be achieved by covering the flash heads with a CC40 Green filter. Now you have effectively balanced the two light sources and you should get a perfect result. This is a fairly simple balancing job, the fun really starts when you get odd mixtures that can involve any combination of Sodium Vapour, Murcury Vapour, Tungsten, Fluorescent or Daylight etc!!!
A good colour temperature meter and any extensive set of correction filters are essential, together with a good working knowledge of film types. Meanwhile, 'back at t' mine' I said power supplies can often be a problem, well back down the salt mine it most certainly was! There was no power supply of any kind and I was not permitted to use my generator for safety reasons. I took this shot with only one flashgun and the machines own lights. The flashgun was used to 'paint the subject with light'. Basically, I ran around in the dark popping off the flashgun to light small areas of the subject until I had built up the full image on the film. The machine's lights where on for only a small part of the total exposure in order to cut down their intensity and reduce the risk of lens flare, I covered the headlights with white 'gaffa' tape. The shutter was open for about 10 minutes with the headlights on for only about 15 seconds.
The shot was taken using a 37mm fisheye on my Mamiya RZ at f22 on 100 ISO transparency film. I only took two frames and without the luxury of any polaroid tests. Incidentally, the man in the shot only had to keep still during the part of the exposure where I was lighting him, as during the rest of the exposure he was in total darkness. However, I had to be careful to only use one flash on the area with the man, as any movement between flashes would have given a double image. Industrial photography can be very challenging and is
hard, often dirty work.
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