I mentioned Andrew Smith's Steel Soul earlier and because the project is so much a labour of love, a labour that emerges from a fascination with something that is out there in the real world, I put a few questions to him.
It also gives me an excuse to run a few more pictures; the one above is by Andrew Smith and the ones below are by some of the great industrial photographers; Maurice Broomfield, Walter Nurnberg and Wolfgang Sievers.
Buy the book here.
Where did you get your passion for industrial photography.
I think that it developed over a couple of years.
The first photobook that I ever bought was Robert Adams 'The New
West'. I've no idea why I was browsing
the book shop shelves that day, as at that time I had a quite
undeveloped interest in taking photographs.
The book was face out, and the simplicity, starkness, and
strangeness of the cover just grabbed me. I bought it,
even though it seemed a bit hostile at that time. That book made me
realise just how creative an outlet photography
could be.
This is where I first encountered industrial subjects,
beautiful industrial subjects. This in turn led me to
the New Topographics, then onto the Bechers, John Davies, and then
Maurice Broomfield, Wolfgang Sievers, Walter Nurnberg.
I made the connections via the books and Internet searching etc.
During this period of time I also made the transition from point and
shoot compacts to a DSLR setup. I think it was the 2nd
compact that I owned that let you get into the the manual controls
easily, that really pushed me to get a DSLR.
Once the DSLR arrived I went out landscaping, I would just
photograph anything, but one day I found an enclosure out
in the countryside that contained some kind of gas facility. I'm not
really sure what it's actual function is to this day.
But that is definitely how it all started.
How did you make Steel Soul?
Steel Soul came about through a succession of pieces of good
fortune.
The east end of Sheffield, the Lower Don Valley, is the area where
the heavy steel industry was established, where it
grew to it's peak, and where it was eventually decimated. The area
has been regenerated, so now there are the usual
drive-to leisure destinations, office space, retail parks, malls
etc, but if you get out there and poke around industry past and
present is visible.
In 2009 I took a lot of photographs there and made a hand bound book
called 'Valley, that was now, this is then'. I got to
exhibit a number of these photographs in a disused shop window in
the center of Sheffield. A curator who was putting together
a group exhibition that was looking at how industry had changed the
architectural face of Sheffield saw the work. I was asked
to contribute. The images that I hung were 3 nearly sequential
photographs, a trilogy, of the buildings on one part of
Forgemasters site. The chief executive of Forgemasters became aware
of the photographs, and his PA rang me to arrange a
meeting. At the subsequent meeting I was invited on-site to
photograph the steel manufacturing processes.
Who are your influences?
I think my visual influences are many really, and not all are
photographers, and sometimes it may be just a particular work or
book. Things shift around,
there is so much to discover. I like Walter Nurnberg (Men and
Machines), Wolfgang Sievers, Gerhard Richter's landscapes, Stephen
Shore, Luigi Ghirri,
Gabriele Basilico, Vermeer, Robert Adams, Paul Morrison, Eric and
James Ravilious to name but a few. I also like a number of the Cafe
Royal books
that have been published recently.
What are the characteristics of great industrial
photography?
I like industrial photography that has some intrigue. I like to look
at what is being presented and to not initially have much of a clue
as to what I am
looking at, or why I'm being required to look at it. I think the not
knowing what, but being somehow fascinated, is testament to the
skill of people like
Broomfield, Nurnberg, and Sievers. Of course we always find out
eventually due to the text. I wanted to see if I could achieve a
little of this with Steel Soul,
hence the separation of images and text (the simple descriptions are
in a table near the end of the book). Perhaps the opposite of what I
am trying to describe
are the images typically found in corporate literature, but these
images are functional and documentary by their nature, and
neccessary, and often beautiful.
How did Steel Soul get funded and published?
Steel Soul at the present time has 2 elements, the book and the
exhibition. The exhibition, in the Sheffield Winter Garden, finishes
on 15/06/13.
The exhibition was very generously funded by the Arts Council as it
was a part of the Sheffield Galvanize festival of contemporary
metal. This is a
bi-annual festival that encompasses all the metalworking traditions
within the city - cutlers, jewellers, silversmiths, heavy industry.
This year is
the centenary of the discovery of stainless steel in the city by
Harry Brearley, so the festival has seen quite a lot of focus.
The Steel Soul book was funded and published by myself. Forgemasters
have licensed a number of the images, this allowed me to finance the
production of the
book. It's the 3rd book under my BYMYI imprint, the 2 others being 2
editions of the Vélo book that accompanied the Vélo project last
year.
How will you continue the steel project?
I'm hoping to develop Steel Soul into a set of documents over time,
so 'Steel Soul...photography from xxx'. We will see. I'm hoping that
the Forgemasters
work may open a few doors and lead me to some new industrial
subjects. I do have a few places in mind. I also have a number of
other non-industrial projects
at various stages of development...although some do have an
industrial element.
How do you find your work?
Steel Soul developed due to the good fortune previously described,
but I suppose that most of the time the work finds me through what's
going on inside my head.
For instance, the Vélo project came about from a combination of
reading Tim Krabbé's book 'The Rider' many years ago, and then
fantasising about my ideal of the
ideal cycling photobook whilst out cycling one day. Ideas can come
from what I'm reading, looking at, or listening to, people I meet
etc.