“Mining” for stock images

Industrial imaging is a genre of photography with high value in a stock portfolio. While shooting models has it’s own kind of, erm,  attraction, industrial images can hold a different kind of fascination. There just has to be art in there somewhere and oddly enough, the ugliest most utilitarian industrial structures have a habit of revealing themselves in a variety of interesting forms.

A year or two back I did some work out in Potchefstroom, a large town about 90 minutes from Johannesburg. On the way to the appointment I could have sworn I had driven past a fantastic-looking petro-chemical plant with one of those tall “flare” chimneys and a bright fire on top. No idea why these plants need to burn their wares off to the world, but it’s a no-brainer of a photo opportunity for stock.

So, up before the sun and birds this past Saturday morning I was all set to catch the rising light. The idea was to expose for the fire flare and if the light was caught early enough, the sky would be under exposed and “pop” the yellow and orange of the chimney flare on a deep blue sky palette.

It all sort of went to plan bar one slight oversight .  .  . said petrol chemical plant was nowhere to be found. I wasted all the rising light driving past mines and mining headgear believing my stock photo nirvana was always just over the next hill. When I arrived at outskirts of Potchefstroom, it was obvious I’d either missed the plant, it had been moved or was simply never there in the first place.

Bugger.

I’m still not sure why that plant was not where it was supposed to be and I’m a bit pissed that all the rising light was missed, but the reality was that all was not lost.

The shoot was salvaged by heading back to a “mining headgear” opportunity I’d passed on the way in. As it turned out, this headgear was right in front of a wood processing plant with all kinds of photo opportunities inside.

The “Ammonium Phosphate” image is a bit of an example of how industrial images tend to reveal themselves in interesting ways. Walking around the wood processing plant I found this corroded chemical tank with a ladder up the side. It sort of screamed “photograph me” and I quite like the fading lettering to go with the corroded tank.

One more mine was photographed from a distance before heading back to see the results. Ultimately the light was strangely crappy for a morning shoot so I tried to save this one with some post processing. Not at all sure if it “works” yet.

Guess sometimes the best laid plans can be scuppered in favour of opportunity.

Tags: industrial, Johannesburg, mine, mining, photo, Photography