Industrial photography can be defined as photographic practice that takes place within and/or at the behest of an industrial organization, to document production processes, products, work organization, employees, or the layout, equipment, or culture of an enterprise. The pictures may serve either internal (e.g. administrative or industrial relations) or external (e.g. advertising or public relations) purposes. In principle there is no distinction between images made by in-house specialists or professionals hired from outside; and photographs taken by workers or clerical staff. The borderline between documentary pictures and journalistic, advertising, and public relations ones is fluid, depending on context and usage in individual cases.
The use of photographs to depict industrial activity and products began in the 1850s and 1860s. Few firms employed their own photographers, but commissioned independent operators, or employees who could use a camera. Many well-known figures worked occasionally for industrial companies. Carleton Watkins in the late 19th century produced many pictures for mining, shipping, and railway companies in California. Albert Renger-Patzsch repeatedly took on industrial work throughout his career, for example with the Zündapp Works in Nuremberg in 1930, or Schubert & Salzer, a manufacturer of textile machinery in Ingolstadt, after 1949. Margaret Bourke-White began her career as an advertising and industrial photographer in Cleveland, Ohio. Industrial photography cannot be tied to a particular aesthetic or function. There are innumerable links with other branches of the medium, such as portraiture, reportage, and architectural and advertising photography. However, it has been particularly associated with certain technical innovations (flash, panoramic equipment) and styles, such as the use of extreme chiaroscuro and, in general,
Early industrial photography centred not on the individual worker but on plant, buildings, and the workforce as a group. Working people as such—artisans, labourers, farmworkers, or fisherfolk—were, indeed, photographed from an early stage; vide the fishwives of newhaven, Scotland, immortalized by Hill and Adamson in 1843-5. However, people in industrial photography appear primarily as part of the production process, with the emphasis on their function rather than their individuality. In general, major engineering projects such as shipbuilding, railway construction, and large-scale building were photographed earlier, more intensively, and more often than office work or the production of food or luxury goods. Well-known examples of the photographic documentation (and presentation) of major building operations are the re-erection of the Crystal Palace in south London in 1857 (P.H.Delamotte) and the reconstruction of the Louvre in 1855-7 (Édouard Denis Baldus), every stage of which was recorded. The construction of locomotives and the building of railway lines with their tunnels and viaducts was another prominent early subject. Particularly well documented was the creation of the first US transcontinental railway, completed at Promontory Point, Utah, in 1869, photographs of which are among the most frequently reproduced examples of classic industrial photography. Less well known but equally spectacular are Marc Ferrez's pictures of the nearly finished Paranagua-Curityba line in Brazil (1879), and images of railway construction in British India. Other massive and comprehensively photographed communications projects included the building of the Suez and Panama Canals, and the Forth Bridge in Scotland.
A special case is mining photography, because of lighting problems underground. Especially in coal mining, the dangers associated with artificial light meant that photography began comparatively late, at the end of the 19th century, although pictures of iron-ore extraction had already been taken in the 1860s. Another problem in mining was the complexity of the workings—the network of shafts and galleries—which could not be rendered visually. Hence individual miners were depicted much more often than other kinds of workers. In mining regions (e.g. Cornwall, England) such pictures had a certain nostalgic ‘ethnographic’ flavour; rather than showing a dynamic, growing industry, it was sometimes a case of creating a visual record of a centuries-old tradition.
Precise periodization of the themes of industrial photography is scarcely possible. However, certain subjects predominated at particular times. In the early phase, as the examples above indicate, overall views of works and construction sites were commoner than other subjects. Products and individual machines were also photographed early on. The Birmingham firm of Wright & Sons had its railway wagons photographed as early as 1858. Albums of product photographs were already in use as advertising material in the 19th century. Pictures of the workforce became more common from the last quarter of the century. By contrast, production processes and work routines could hardly be shown in situ until plates were sufficiently sensitive and lighting problems had been solved. Such obstacles also meant that for a long time work processes had to be staged, something that was impossible during normal hours. By 1900, together with pictures of events like ship launches, anniversaries, the inauguration (or demolition) of buildings and machines, and the celebration of local and national festivals, almost the whole register of modern industrial picture types was in place. In the 1920s the increased showcasing of products can be seen as a direct consequence of the professionalization of advertising. Dominant at all times, though adapted to prevailing stylistic trends, was a documentary, ‘factual’ visual vocabulary.
The long-term development of industrial photography at individual company level can only be followed reasonably adequately in relation to large firms. Krupp in Essen (founded 1811/12), a maker of iron and steel products, most notably artillery, is an outstanding—and outstandingly well-documented—example of a firm's systematic use of photography. The Krupps, until at least the post-First World War period, greatly valued the photographic depiction of the enterprise, for both internal and external purposes. From early on they used the camera as a means of self-presentation, both privately and for business, although the two spheres are not always easily distinguishable. The company had a photographic department from 1861, and chief works photographer from then until 1901 was a minor relative, Hugo van Werden (1836-1911). The department had multifarious tasks, producing views of the plant (s) and auxiliary buildings, pictures of production processes, portraits of blue-and white-collar employees, and records of product tests, including trials of Krupp guns and armour plate. Accident damage was also photographed, as well as the firm's increasingly elaborate welfare arrangements. (Considerations of surveillance and discipline probably played a part in this.) In important cases, the owners gave detailed instructions about what was to be photographed, and how. On 12 January 1867, for example, Alfred Krupp (1812-87) wrote to van Werden about a proposed works photograph: ‘I suggest using a Sunday, as there is too much smoke, steam and commotion on a weekday, and the loss [of production] would be too great. Whether 500 or 1, 000 men will be needed is up to you.’ The Krupp family was also an official subject, especially when celebrities like the emperor visited. But most pictures, irrespective of subject matter, could be used for a range of purposes: as advertisements, for example, or as illustrations for the company newspaper or in presentation albums; even, in due course, as examples of the history of industrial photography. This seems characteristic of company photographs regardless of their country of origin.
Industrialists use photography, within prevailing cultural and economic limits, to project a certain image of themselves and their undertakings. The French textile manufacturers Blin & Blin, Jewish emigrants from Alsace who settled in Elbeuf, Normandy, in 1872, tried to present their factory as a model of state-of-the-art efficiency in order to legitimize themselves in their new surroundings. The Ansaldo shipyard in Genoa also endeavoured through photographs to create an aura of modernity, good organization, and patriotism.
The visual record of a firm, developing perhaps over several decades, is never unified, and often an accumulation of pictures created for particular purposes and for particular target audiences inside and outside its walls. Such diversity is emphasized by David Nye in his study of the American giant General Electric. Pictures reveal company values and priorities at a given moment, but there is seldom an autonomous long-term strategy. At the turn of the 21st century, a large corporation may use pictures to address a wide range of publics, including existing or potential consumers of its products, neighbours, environmental groups, shareholders, and its own workforce. Particular events, such as strikes or pollution disasters, may require the production of extensive visual propaganda.
Another variant of industrial photography is workers' photography, carried out within the enterprise. In Germany in the 1920s and early 1930s a social democratic-and communist-influenced photographic movement developed which, in 1931, had c.2, 400 members. It was stimulated by social documentary photography, and contemporary work in Russia. The Arbeiter illustrierte Zeitung and Arbeiter-Fotograf offered publication outlets. However, a distinctive ‘work’ style failed to emerge: partly because of workers' own self-perception, partly because of the limitations on workplace photography imposed by management.
In conclusion, industrial photography is a highly diverse phenomenon. It reflects both the technical and aesthetic currents prevalent in photography generally at a given time; and prevailing notions of photography's usefulness to industry. The pictures can be read to reveal both the messages intended by their makers, and period-specific cultural traits of particular companies and of industry per se. Today, as the case of Bernd and Hilla Becher demonstrates, some industrial images belong to the canon of art photography.
— Jens Jaeger
Bibliography
- Nye, D. E., Image Worlds: Corporate Identities at General Electric 1890-1930 (1985).
- Matz, R., Industriefotografie: Aus Firmenarchiven des Ruhrgebiets (1987).
- Tenfelde, K. (ed.), Bilder von Krupp: Fotografie und Geschichte im Industriezeitalter (1994).
- Kosok, L., and Rahner, S. (eds.), Industrie und Fotografie: Sammlungen in Hamburger Unternehmensarchiven (1999).
- Woronoff, D., La France industrielle: gens des ateliers et des usines 1890-1950 (2003)
