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Brian Finke: Construction Guys

Photography has always been a wonderful way of revealing everything and nothing, from the majestic landscapes of Yosemite National Park to the hidden faces of plants and flowers. Sometimes it reveals the mystery of deep water creatures, other times it showcases something that's always been in every household. In this case, photographer Brian Finke shows something new in people that have always been part of the urban landscape in his project "Construction".

Since graduating with a Fine Arts degree, Brian Finke has worked for different publications including GQ, ESPN (Magazine), The New York Times and Rolling Stone, to name a few. He has exhibited and lectured extensively on his work, most notably on his previous projects on flight attendants, bodybuilders, and cheerleaders and football players.

In 2-4-6-8: American Cheerleaders and Football Players, Finke looks at the energetic Americana that is high school football and the female equivalent of cheer-leading. In Most Muscular, the muscular layers of bodybuilders are peeled away to reveal... even more muscle. In Flight Attendants, the photographer reveals a behind-the-scenes perspective of the decades-old profession. With his latest work, Construction, Finke once again turns his camera to a particular group of people; the blue-collared worker.

In Construction, Finke exhibits the same quality of portraiture found in his previous titles; tell-tale moments of individuals that capture the spirit of the larger group. Here, men and women don the stereotypical work clothes of construction workers and work in the stereotypical construction setting using stereotypical construction tools and machinery. The scenes are so vivid that one can almost smell the steel and stone being burnt, bent and hammered into place.

From high-rise condominium projects set against the skyline of a city to backhoes grinding against the dirt, there's really nothing new in Finke's collection, yet everything looks new. While Finke wanted to capture the energy and vitality of the construction boom that started in 2008, he instead got "...an honest look at what it means to be, at the daily task of being, a construction worker.”

With his Construction, Finke joins the pantheon of other notable photographers who documented manual labor: Lewis Hine and his stirring series on child labor which changed the labor laws of the US for the better, Irving Penn and his portraits of small-trade workers in Paris, and Sebastião Salgado and his somber look at today's manual laborers.

The vivid colors of these photographs are also reminiscent of the brilliant 1940s Kodachrome images of the Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information which showed the construction of tanks and planes to be used for World War II. Indeed, Finke's construction series is no more than small moments captured beautifully on film, but that in itself is worth sharing: honest moments preserved for posterity.

Brian Finke's website is here, with images from his past projects. The Construction series is due to be released soon in hard copy form as well as on in his website, but in the meantime, check out his previous works on Flight Attendants and 2-4-6-8: American Cheerleaders and Football Players.

Irving Penn: Small Trades, Big Pride

The previous couple of posts highlighted the gloomy side of labor, but those shouldn't dissuade you from the idea of manual labor or work in general. Both Lewis Hine and Sebastião Salgado sought to expose the hardships faced by laborers in their working environment, but Irving Penn's Small Trades project created half a century ago illustrates the exact opposite by portraying these workers in a beautiful light.

The entire Small Trades collection comprises 252 full length portraits done by Mr. Penn and shows off different professions in a simple studio setting. There is a noticeable absence of women in the series, but that shouldn't detract from the ingenuity of this phenomenal work.

The project started in 1950 in a studio in Paris. Mr. Penn was one of the most sought after fashion photographers of his time and the idea of photographing ordinary workers would seem strange given that he was used to shooting glamorous models for fashion magazines.

Working on assignment for Vogue magazine, he began photographing different people working on the Parisian streets. When he got back to New York, he continued this series and later on expanded to London. Part of the allure of this collection is that save for the captions and other tell-tale signs, the portraits are homogeneous; it's as if all the subjects worked in the same giant city.

Unlike the previous works of Hine and the Salgado, these photographs were taken in the studio, in the signature look of Mr. Penn; black-and-white with a single large light source coming from one side. Often times, this was natural light coming from a skylight above and windows to the side.

You would think that taken out of their comfort zone (their work place) and placed in a photographer's studio that these people would look rather uncomfortable. On the contrary, armed with their working tools or simply dressed in their uniform, they look confidently into the camera. It becomes quite clear that these men and women are proud not only to be in their respective vocations but also to be photographed as a representative of their livelihood as well.

This poise and self-respect is probably why Mr. Penn continued to photograph over a 250 of these workers. Instead of feeling sorry for them in their small trade, viewers can sense the quite pride that they have for their chosen profession.

These are the people that you would normally interact with for only a few minutes or even a few seconds in any given day, yet their simple acts of service or the products they sell all help to move and give life to the city that they live in. From the classiest restaurants to the less enchanting abattoirs, all of these men and women contribute to society, and they want you to know that they are proud of that fact.

Here is a short New York Times audio slide show and article on Irving Penn's Small Trades which were made to coincide with the 2009 exhibit at the J. Paul Getty Museum. You can get the book Irving Penn: Small Trades or Mr. Penn's other works: Still Life : Irving Penn Photographs, 1938-2000, Irving Penn Portraits, and A Notebook at Random.

Sebastião Salgado: The Modern Face of the Worker

The images of child laborers photographed by Lewis Hine in the previous post are like a faint memory from a distant past, but the reality of today's working man isn't so far removed from those of the previous feature. The harsh reality of manual labor as captured by Hine a century ago is still reflected in the faces of today's laborers as photographed by Sebastião Salgado.

Mr. Salgado is currently based in Paris but hails from Aimorés in Southeastern Brazil. His series entitled Workers began in 1986 and centers on different industries that employ manual labor all around the world.

From the tea plantations in Rwanda to the gold mines of Brazil to the textile industry in Bangladesh, Mr. Salgado captured the workers in their element and presented them in striking black and white photographs.

This kind of presentation makes the pictures both objective and subjective at the same time, but the focus is never lost on the worker who is the subject. As he puts it, "It is not the photographer who makes the picture, but the person being photographed." His images are testament to that quote.

In many places, machinery has become the dominant means of harvesting and processing materials, but operating costs as well as the overflowing presence of manual labor means that men and women still do most of the work.

Even with the proper equipment and right training, many jobs are still physical taxing and quite dangerous. If not for Mr. Salgado's images, this fact would remain relatively unknown or largely forgotten.

If you look closely at these photographs, you will notice that some of these workers are gathering the raw ingredients that become the commodities and even luxury items marketed in the first world. It's not unlikely that you have used a product that might have crossed the hands on one of these workers.

The sad reality of this series is that these workers toil around the clock to provide the raw materials and processed goods that allow others to lead a more comfortable life.

You would think that after seven years of grueling field work around the work, Mr. Salgado would move on to more glamorous projects, but he has persevered in documenting refugees and their migration plight, the effects of drought near the Sahara desert in Africa, and the global campaign to eradicate polio.

He co-founded along with his wife Lélia Wanick Salgado the Amazones Images photo agency. His current project is entitled Genesis and is focused on documenting landscapes and cultures that are pristine and left untouched by urbanization.

More of these images from the Workers series as well as from Sebastião Salgado's other projects can be found on the Amazones Images website. You can also purchase Sebastiao Salgado: Workers, as well as his other projects, Migrations: Humanity in Transition, Sabastiao Salgado: Africa (GO) and Sahel: The End of the Road.

Lewis Hine: The Littlest Laborers

This week saw many countries commemorate International Workers Day. While many labor groups use this day to advocate for improvements to their present working condition, this day should also be used to celebrate how much has improved for workers all over the world. These improvements are quite striking when you see the historic photographs of child labor as captured by the legendary photographer Lewis Hine.

What seems to look like a band of happy children on a farm above is actually a group of under-aged workers who shucked oysters for almost eight hours a day before and after school hours nearly a full century ago. Below, children work in groups or individually in packing plants, mines and mills in the early years of the 20th century.

Most of the children who worked in these places were brought in by their parents' employers; the father would work at the more demanding jobs while the mother and kids would be assigned lighter tasks.

As you can see in these pictures, the definition of a light task included working long hours doing physically taxing jobs in hazardous environments. There are many stories of these kids having physical ailments in their adulthood as a result of the grueling work they did when they were younger.

Usually, these families were immigrants who were lured to America with the prospect of jobs and a better life. This was at a time when industry was booming in the country and more workers were needed to man different fields.

Some of these jobs benefited from the small hands and nimble bodies of the children. This was a fact that was exploited by different industries everywhere.

At that time, American law-makers weren't completely apathetic towards this situation, and many US states had already passed laws that regulated the employment of children in industrial settings. Most companies however chose to ignore these laws. It wasn't an uncommon notion that hiring these children would help out the poorer families in the state.

While Lewis Hine was documenting these child laborers, many employers passed them off as at least 16 years old. In reality, children as young as eight were already hired for different jobs.

Mr. Hine studied sociology and later on became a teacher. He encouraged his students to use photography as a tool for their education. Later on, he realized that photojournalism was his true calling.

He first documented the arrival of immigrants in Ellis Island in 1904. He continued his photography by following these immigrants into their crowded tenements. It wouldn't be long after starting on this path that his work led him to the working conditions of the poor, including children.

His groundbreaking work on child labor began in 1908 at the invitation of the National Child Labor Committee. They believed that child labor would only provide so much income for the families in the short run and wouldn't lead them out of poverty in the future. Instead, a proper education was the true way for improving the lives of the children.

Mr. Hine set out to different factories, mines, and plants in many states to document these child workers. It is truly a testament to his skill and determination that he was able to capture so many moving images at the risk of his own life; the presence of a photographer with the aim of exposing these exploited children would have been an unwelcome prospect for these companies, to say the least.

Mr. Hine's photographs put hundreds of faces to the names of these child laborers that the middle and upper classes had only heard about in passing. His invaluable work paid off as the NCLC successfully lobbied for federal laws to protect the children, although it would be many years before true change would come.

Today, Lewis Hine is remembered for helping change the working conditions of everyone across America through his unflinching photographs. Then NCLC honors his name through the Lewis Hine Awards which recognizes those who have helped children and the youth.

All of these high resolution photographs were taken from the Shorpy Historic Photo Archive. You can also find more of Lewis Hine's work on child laborers over at the University of Maryland website. The following publications are available for purchase: Kids at Work: Lewis Hine and the Crusade Against Child Labor, Men at Work, and Lewis Hine as Social Critic.

Construction dairy

Brian Finke: Construction Guys

Irving Penn: Small Trades, Big Pride

Sebastião Salgado: The Modern Face of the Worker

Lewis Hine: The Littlest Laborers

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