Concept
The concept is to capture the factory once everyone has left for home, the ambience and atmosphere of a breathing industrial machine.
What ?
A return to the factory I work at, capturing light and shadow, colour and blackness. Wandering around the facility after the rest of the workforce have left for home.
Kit ?
This shoot is rather opportunistic and as such I had only my Leica Q2 camera with it’s 47 Megapixel sensor. My tripod is at home and I will not need a flash as I’m planning on using the available light even though it is unnatural light.
Colour / B&W ?
Colour is the way forward on this shoot, my Leica Q2 is a colour camera, and I’ll leave it in colour mode and change it in lightroom. The colours available in the scenes from Shoot 1 are worthwhile capturing and offer more depth to the images so I’m happy to avoid black and white at the moment.
When ?
Late in the evening after the rest of the workforce has clocked off at 5:15 pm. I’ll have around an hour to play with before I need to get home or the nightshift come in early and ruin my fun by switching on lights in the buildings.
Other Considerations ?
Health and Safety is important when shooting in the factory. Trip hazards, machines, liquids, sharp corners, and things to bang my head on. I’ll be using a head torch to get around in the darkness if I am unable to see the prescribed walkways. Security will be informed so they’re not surprised to see someoen wandering around on their CCTV system. PPE will also be worn, a high vis reflective jacket, safety shoes, goggles, ear defenders and even a bump cap. Watches and jewellery must also be removed when entering the factory space.
Also a crucial concern, any Intellectual Property or confidential information that might fall in front of the camera lens and how I treat it, share it and document it.
Below is the contact sheet that I’ve created in Lightroom of the images that I captured on my way around the facility. Some are turned sideways and some are cropped a little but I’ll include larger images of some of my favourite pictures from the shoot.
Eat & Meet
First up is what we call an Eat & Meet area, a small canteen space containing tables, microwaves and sinks etc. Workers meet every morning for a brief on the day ahead and then revisit it three times a day for the break times. This area is next door to my office and at break times it’s quiet with people reading or listening to their music via headphones. Occasional laughter and joking erupts between quiet spells before the buzzer sounds to signal the return to work.
You can see the layout is very basic and looks grubby even though it is clean. The lights outside this elevated room seem to create shadows of Xs onto the tables in the centre of the image which relates to the Masking Tape X on the table furthest away, a relic of social distancing in the Covid 19 pandemic. A reminder of a strange period of history that encompasses even the people in their workplace. the yellow overhead crane outside the window seems to distract my eyes but I like the lines of the work surfaces, edges of tables and window frames that point towards the wall holding a clock aloft. Another real reminder of the fact that time is money. The lights in this area are driven by a PIR movement sensor so I have to wait a while to take these pictures after I got too close and triggered the sensor. It’s an interesting image but the composition is nothing overly outstanding in my opinion. This might be different for other viewers who don’t see this type of environment on a regular basis though.
Corridor Of Light
The next photo is in the corridor that I’ve previously explored in the first shoot but this time the lights were completely off. On this occasion the ceiling LED panels are off and the only light source in this corridor is the emergency light, which is blown out due to over exposure and balancing the ability to see the remainder of the detail. THe track of reflected light coming across the ceiling is a good balance to the leading lines of the floor/wall junction and the cabinets on the left all aiming towards the double door at the end.
I also like the small details on the left which come from small lamps or leds in the control panels as well as the light bouncing off the paper on the noticeboard to the right of the image. This area of the factory is an area I’m especially used to being in as I spent a couple of years in here testing diesel engines and a few more years on the maintenance of the equipment held herein. During a normal working day this space is full of noise, diesel engines being run at various speeds, hissing from air and liquid, pumps spinning up, fans to cool things down and people operating the equipment.
On this night though it’s almost silent, bar the occasional pop and hiss from air circuits and contactors and relays clicking in and out. The multiple screens on the test equipment have all gone to sleep and the only life appears to be outside of the double doors at the end of the corridor. This shot was 1/20th of a second at f/1.7 and ISO6400, for the slow speed of the shutter I had to lean against a rack of shelves. As per shoot one, I would benefit from having a tripod and shutter release cable. This could be a good place for a shoot with film also, something like Cinestill 800T with it’s halation around light sources might give me a great image.
Flash Aah!
Next location was in a part of the factory where someone had left an overhead crane powered on, I can tell this as the yellow beacon was flashing and giving off some strange vibes. Some video of this can be seen in my short vid Factory Signs Of Life on YouTube. The photos I took in this location were not great as they lack some context but I do like the silhouette nature of the large crane hook hanging in the foreground.
I turned around and noticed that the flashing of the beacon was highlighting a sign for a door which also made it into the video. These photographs were made at 1/50th sec, ISO6400 and Aperture of f/1.7 on the Leica Q2 with the 28mm Summicron lens. In the photo above there are lines going through the image which lead the eye through the scene and whilst the roof space is lit up prominently, the remainder of the light falls off quickly through the rest of the image.
Wall Of Glass
A little further down this bay, with the now isolated crane in pitch blackness, I could see the light coming through the floor to roof windows. It was a gradient of colour and light against the blackness of the grey walls with the pipes and cables criss-crossing. It’s a bit of an abstract image and the pallet at the bottom of the image hints at the industrialism of the scene. The scene outside is different with the green corrugated cladding being lit from local businesses and mirror like glass just bein ga black hole. I prefer this view, the sky was not blue but the light from the car park opposite is treated by the reflective window coverings and turns it into a blue colour. It coul dalmost be a nuclear explosion being detonated a mile away. It’s also very painterly and whilst it contains more noise than I’d normally like, I think it adds to the image to make the windows appear grimy.
Doorlight
Walking along to the next area of the building was in I came across a door used for fork lift trucks to enter and exit. It’s an electrically powered door and to allow for some visibility through the door there are some parts that are left transparent. This door has horizontal lines from left to right and three rows of transparent sections which let the light in from outside. With the limited light inside this building it was just possible to make out the red warning sign. I like this image as you can tell there is something on the opposite side of the door and you’ll have to lift it up by pressing the button to uncover what is actually there. This image was shot at 1/8th of a second and the camera well supported by my stance, as well as the optical stabilisation employed in the camera. A tripod would make a better image possible though.
This same door is visible in the next shot too, if you look to the left you’ll see the horizontal lines disappearing into the wall towards the brightly lit part of the building that contains a vending machine. Some details in the roof space and the opposite side from the door are slightly visible in the image and this is pretty much as my eye sees it. The reflections of the light from the brightly lit area on the shiny painted floor are what pulls me into the image and the reason I like this image over many other that I made on this shoot.
Green Night
A feature of the shots I made in Shoot One was green lighting from emergency light charging indicator leds. This next shot is a photo of a doorway leading into a gents washroom, and is lit only by the tiny green led.
I like this image as it is not obviously a doorway into a bathroom but the wear to the painted floor gives away the fact that this is indeed a well travelled path. The employees in this area of the factory use this to wash their hands free of oil and contaminants before their break times and also when they need to have a “comfort break”. The two doorways, with the inner one being on a different angle from the outer one give me a strange perspective especially with the half painted walls. A Sprinkler pipe and electrical conduit are a tell tale that this isn’t a domestic installation or environment. This shot is also made at 1/8th of a second with aperture of f/1.7 and ISO of 6400, I was leaning on a metal cage to steady myself, then firing off three or four photos. the first would be blurry owing to me depressing the shutter release and the last image was similar as I let go of the shutter button. The middle image was the most stable and therefore the best.
Multiple Other Images
Time to head outside now and try another area of the factory but I didn’t seem to have any joy with these images, so I’ll include them below in a gallery format, if you want to have a look you might click on them to examine.
Inside the number one building now and a quick wander around in the dark, carefully using a torch to navigate safely. The next photograph shows a style of photograph that I was looking for in this building, some light spilling out from a source through some components into the gangway.
Sliver
You can see the light source is off to the left and is a sliding door left ajar witht eh very defined channel of light finding it’s way through some large packing boxes and over the green painted walkway before making it to the grey painted internal transport path. The picture is made for me by the blocking of the light by the large metal stanchion in the foreground. It creates a silhouette that prevents you from seeing all of the contents of the scene, almost as if there is the black monolith (from 2001 A Space Odyssey) stood in the way.
The fact that this picture is mostly negative space with the light being released from the left side to cross over to the right hand side is also a reason I love it. Look closely towards the foreground and you’ll also see another sliver of light that has snuck past some cartons to escape into the fork lift truck lane.
Gallery of Variety
A few more photos as I ambled around looking for another favourite saw me capturing light entering the building without permission and projecting itself onto product and components in the factory. You can see that the lighting around the facility is bright in most places and can leech through into places supposedly dark. As you can see from the images in this gallery there are a number of different vantage points and the shutter speed was always the same, at about 1/8th of asecond with aperture of f/1.7 and ISO6400. There are three ok images in this collection but the larger one at the foot of this gallery is my favourite with the marvellous red footpath being illuminated partly by the light escaping. The shadows from the barriers and the bright light showing off the wood structure of the boxes all add up to be a pleasing image of a factory at night time. Whay is in the boxes? Where is the light coming from? Why is the floor painted Red?
Car Park Escape
My favourite image from this section of the shoot is the following, taken as I strolled back up the yard, past the car park on my way back to my office. It shows a simple scene of some fences, with a gate built in and a tall street light illuminating the car park beyond. There are no cars visible in this shot as most of them have left for the day. The yellow barriers are there to prevent cars from interacting with the space for cyclists and I like the way that the light reaches up high creating some negative space on the right hand side of the image. The fence seems to sit in the right place for the rule of thirds to work correctly and the small footpath of stone leads the viewer into the image, unaware that the gate is locked and has been for many years.
It’s a simple image but one that I like immensely. Maybe this is due to the feeling that I’m (the viewer) is fenced in and unable to escape, maybe this is the 35 years of employment on the site looking at an exit strategy (I’m not looking at leaving, in case my boss or peers is reading). The rich darkness of the sky with a small amount of blue hour light or light pollution being available just over the trees at the other side of the car park.
I wonder if the leaning fence posts and light post help drag me into the frame too, I did try straightening in Lightroom using Guided Distortion Correction but it looked unnatural and seemed to damage the effect of the scale. The altered image can be seen beneath the main photo.
Summary Of Shoot
Again this shoot led me to collect a couple of wonderful images that I’m proud of. the photos that capture light sneaking into the factory are lovely and I also enjoyed seeing the green washroom photo showing us the evidence of workers traipsing in and out, with the paint on the floor being worn away.
I’ll definitely be back to take more photos of the factory internals with a film camera and my Canon 5D, along with a tripod and shutter release cable. To me the factory being empty is similar experience to the Raven’s Meadow Multi-Storey Car Park that I’ve spent a lot of time photographing. It’s the emptiness of the structures, when they’re usually full of people going about their business. It’s about the shutdown and the hibernation of these spaces when not in use. The fact that I’ve spent many years in the place also gives me an insight into the sounds, smells and sights that I’m used to in the daytime, so to experience the same locations in the night time is a completely different thing.
Compared to the first shoot, where I mostly used light flooding spaces, I feel that in this shoot I also managed to find shafts of light that squeezed into the factory and illuminated very specific items or areas. This feels more enjoyable looking at the images as there is more mystery and figuring out of what is actually happening, ie. where the light is coming from and what is it illuminating?
I’m planning on another shoot at Christmas time when I have to be one of the last two people out of the factory before the Christmas holiday, but that will likely be a Leica shoot too, but I do need to revisit at night with the 5D and Bronica ETRS 645 Film camera.
Be First to Comment