My workplace closes down for Christmas and as a result the whole site is closed up, locked and powered down. This is usually done the day after everyone has left for the year with the a couple of managers walking the site to check everything is buttoned down and no obvious errors made.
As I changed jobs in August to become a manager, the task now becomes one of my responsibilities and as such I would be walking around with most of the site powered down and no other employees around. I took my Leica Q2 camera in and managed to capture a couple of images that I was pleased with.
Plan
Concept
The concept is to discover how the factory I work in on a daily basis is perceived by me as an employee and a photographer, as well as other employees who work in the same spaces. Do they see the same connections to the factory that I see when I make images of hitherto unseen phenomena in the buildings. My career from a 16 year old apprentice to a 50 year old manager has seen me grow as a person, as a parent, as an employee, as a human being and especially as an artist. Can I see this growth as I look at the images?
What ?
Photography of interesting scenes within the workplace, Vistas usually brightly lit in the daytime become unfamiliar in the dank lighting of the night time when factory lighting is turned off and onyl emergency lighting or external light makes its way onto the concrete and steel canvas.
Kit ?
As I don’t have much time to perform this shoot I am using my handheld mirrorless point and shoot Leica Q2 camera with it’s 47 Megapixel sensor. No tripod or flash this time as I’m using available light and woudl revisit this with a tripod if using a film camera with a high ISO film. For digital and ISO of 6400 I can rest againts walls or racks to provide some support.
Colour / B&W ?
This Leica Q2 is a colour camera, The colours of some lights and leds around the factory might prove to be important to setting the scene. Also there are a few colours visible outside of the usual industrial tones and a colour might appear in a colour image might be a nice surprise. If I want a black and white photo I’ll simply convert it and edit it in Adobe Lightroom.
When ?
Staying later than everyone else to do a final shutdown walk around once everyone has left the factory for Christmas break. This is unusual for me as when I was in IT I would have holiday left over at the end of the year to use up and usually finish for the holidays in early december so to be here on the last day will be odd. I still have holiday left over but it’s part of the role to be here for this work.
Other Considerations ?
As mentioned in the previous shoot plans Health and Safety is a concern in the factory environment. There are trip hazards, machines, liquids, sharp corners, things to bang my head on and all this is magnified when I’m doing this with the lights out. H&S is taken very seriously at my workplace and I must ensure that I take steps to ensure that I am as safe as possible. The security guards area aware that I am in the factory and do keep an eye on me using the CCTV. If I do not come out at the expected time they would send someone in to look for me. I will also use a head torch to see where I’m going in the event that there is not enough light to see the path ahead clearly. Personal Protective Equipment is required, a High Vis reflective vest, safety shoes with metal toecaps, safety goggles, ear defenders and sometimes a bump cap. These are requirements to enter the areas, as is the requirement to remove watches and jewellery so we can be as safe as possible. It matters not that the whole site is shutdown, these safety measures are still to be adhered to.
Another consideration is the company I work for, their intellectual property, brand image and public perception, is carefully controlled and protected.. I must therefore be careful about what I capture in the frame and how it is presented so that no confidential information is shared. Careful scrutiny of the images before publishing is a concern that I must take seriously.
Starting Point
I started the quick wander from my office as I’d picked up my camera. The first shot was a photo of my office, an industrial office sat at the top of some steel stairs. The lighting of the office was very bright in the dour darkness of the powered down factory. The steel walkway that bangs everytime I walk across it announces that I am leaving my office much the same way as when my Mum’s wedding ring used to catch the bannister to warn me to switch off my radio and pretend to be asleep back when I was kid.
The office walls are brightly painted and the LED motion activated lights make it appear as if it’s being decontaminated in an alien horror film. The warning sticker on the window adds to this overall aesthetic too and I like it being a point to be drawn to.
Upwards to mystery
Turning around 180 degrees I am looking at another long set of steps illuminated by the strong light leaking from my office windows. The strong yellow lines on the front of each tread of the steps is a bright point and leads my eye up the stairs to whatever awaits for the person who climbs them….. I know what is at the top of the stairs and its function hasn’t changed in the 35 years I’ve worked there but my understanding of it has. When I first started it was a mysterious, dank place haunted by the ghost of the factory where nobody went without a good excuse. Since then I’ve grown up a little and have found it to be a functional room where many industrial processes take place, all making strange noises but not a very spooky place at all. This isn’t a photo that fits in with some of my other favourites from the three shoots so far though as it’s a bit too brightly lit for my preferences.
Dark Office
After waiting around for the ten minutes for the PIR Sensor to time out on my office lights I turn back around to take another image of my office with the bright lights now doused. The only lights left are the eerie green leds from the emergency lights announcing to all that they are charging whilst the power is on, to enable them to work in the event of a power loss.
The bright light from the alien bacteria decontamination is now gone leaving a starburst effect in the glass from the green led. Some green light falls on the hand rail leading to my office and another green light shines off to the right, showing me where the door is should I need it in the event of a power loss or fire. The white light that can be seen is a reflection from the door at the end of the factory behind me. You’ll see this door in a few moments in another image.
Zombie Alley
Making my way down the stairs in the new green lit atmosphere I make my way into a long corridor, lit by green leds and many indicator lamps and leds that dot the sides of the corridor like an episode of Star Trek when their special effects were a little more industrial. The light from the emergency lamps does a good job of creating a pool of light on the floor as if it were a moon over the sea. The photo on the left shows a big black door, with darkness beyond it and a mat on the floor in the centre looks to be a hole in the floor to capture unwitting explorers in this realm. the right hand picture is the reverse angle and a multitude of shiny ceiling tiles carries the light away from the distant source to reach me. There is a strange Pi symbol floating on the ceiling with a blue hue to it, this is a wifi access point but it is a little weird si I think I’d try hard to remove it if it needed to be printed large format. The scene in these two images is something that I might have seen in the film 28 Days Later or int he series The Walking Dead, when the protagonists are looking for resources and have to navigate gloomy rooms with the fear of a flesh eating undead person behind every corner.
This corridor has been here in it’s current configuration for many years and little has changed apart from the technology within. The lights are more stark LED driven illumination whereas they would have been filament lamps giving off a warmer feel. The corridor does creep people out in the same way the room above it does, the one at the top of the stairs but I find it a reassuring room. It’s where I learnt a lot of the skills that has helped me to become the person I am today and I remember sitting on one of the chairs finding out my grandad had died whilst my team leader shouted at me for sitting down. He was joking at the time but was dismayed when I turned around with tears filling my eyes. Many of my skills that I’ve used and continue to implement were picked up here from people who have long since died, as I will eventually, leaving only the memories for the younger people in the factory to remember me by. Weird, that I just went a bit deep on this over these two photos, it shows that I have many memories of the people and jobs that I have worked with in this factory.
DNA Door
Now to my favourite image from this whole shoot. It’s a simple photograph of a door to the outside world that has been sealed off and isolated to prevent the elements or any fork lifts coming through. There are no fork lifts driving around, it would be really dangerous with no lights on in the building…
This image shows the yellow door with a transparent window in it allowing the external street lighting into the factory, and it’s reflected in the glass on the top half of a half metal, half glass wall that leads down the gangway towards me, the photographer. This reflection ties into the vertical strip of light which is the windows in the factory. Our buildings have windows from floor to roof in a narrow column like a rubbish game of Tetris, this is to save space on the walls, allowing natural light in (during the daytime). Theis tall set of panes is broken up by the pipes and girders that pass along in front of it, almost making it into a barcode, or a genetic test showing a match. It kind of links to the amount of time I’ve worked here and how the factory is part of me and I am part of it.
The fact that we have light going left to right, up to down and front to back reminds me also of the XYZ axis on a CAD Drawing or Model used extensively in engineering to communicate the designer’s intent. The small pool of light on the floor shows is it is not an isolated wall of light, and the emergency exit light in green to the right of the door is an escape route to be sued in the event of an emergency. I’ve never felt like I needed to escape yet but these reminders are there as a path to freedom if the work ever gets on top of me.
Vertical Services
The next image also shows some of the vertical windows, but above an internal office structure and also illuminates the services that are needed in a factory today to keep the workers and the materials in tip top condition to complete production targets.
The exterior street light peers through the glass like an early morning sunrise bringing life to the factory. The shadows and light it throws onto the walls and surrounding structures of the roof space gives us a partial picture of the environment and I like it as a peaceful photograph in much the same way as the one favourite shot from Shoot 1
Electric Sunset
The penultimate shot I’ll share with this post is not a sunset shot over a holiday cottage but a a bright red LED announcing that the machine is isolated and poses no danger to anyone by moving on it’s own automatic computer driven program.
The light was noticed through the perspex which acts as a guard to prevent chips of metal swarf from contaminating other areas and the shadows are of a cupboard that holds the spindle tools but I thought that they looked like a series of roofs in a holiday resort. Lights like this are found throughout the industrial environment either as a warning or a symbol to show us that it’s safe or dangerous. There’s sometimes little logic as to why green lights are green and red lights are red. Red lights usually signify a danger to me so I always treat them with respect and this one is no different. I wouldn’t go near this CNC machine as it might be a danger but I feel safe enough on this side of the perspex barrier.
Paint Streaks
The last photo I will share with you the reader is this shot of a streak of light coming through the slatted window in the pedestrian door as I made my way out to the yard and then home for the Christmas holiday.
There is an external yard through the pedestrian and fork lift doors. The yellow light seen all over the floor is from the light coming through the yellow plastic rapid rising doors used for huge fork lifts and the white light is coming in directly through the clear glass of the ped door. The clean white light illuminates the colours painted onto the industrial floor surface. The greens, yellows and greys in this photo are indications as to where people should walk and where internal transport is allowed to move around. These floor level imaginary barriers guide us every day to ensure that we reduced the risk of people and transport coming into contact with each other. Most of the employees on site understand the rules of the painted floors and glide through the space with the ease and automatic nature of an electronic maze solving mouse finding it’s way to the centre of the labyrinth. I often wonder if malevolent people could paint winding paths and have employees blindly follow it, but I know deep down that we have people in the organisation who would notice the wasted effort and ask for it to be “leaned” or made more efficient.
Conclusion
Despite this session being a shorter than expected one, I still came out of it with one photo that I’m exceptionally happy with and a couple of also-rans. Looking at using a film camera sounds ok but I would struggle to bring out the details I’m finding with my digital camera, and even with the digital noise form shooting at a relatively high ISO I’m still enjoying the images. The noise seems to fit with the industrial nature of the materials being photographed. I think over the three shots that I have three or four photographs that I’m happy to include in the exhibition that will be put on at the Eagle Works Studios near Easter Time.
The next step is to discuss with Sylvia and the rest of my coursemates, and fellow exhibitors, the options to see fi they agree with my choices and also whether they fit in with the overall content of the exhibition.
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