Industrial environments attract me for a number of reasons: the varieties of patterns and shapes, the colors (often muted with bright accents), the atmosphere of secrecy and foreboding, the awe inspiring machinery. Besides, I feel a sense of responsibility for showing fundamental but commonly ignored aspects of our world.
Good photographic opportunities inside a power plant are rare. During the plant's operation, many areas are off-limits because of searing heat, steam, perilously moving parts, or important controls. What areas are accessible must not be blocked by camera equipment and anyway offer poor support for a tripod because the floors transmit the vibrations from the diesel engines, steam turbines, generators, winches, pumps, and countless other humming and churning devices. Better to catch the plant outside its time of operation, which is either right at the beginning or at the end of its life. But then there tend to be other obstacles. At the beginning, there is construction clutter and debris, a tight delivery and testing schedule, and plenty of red tape. At the end, there are worries about contaminants, oversight and insurance issues, and plenty of red tape. I thus feel very privileged to have had access to the municipal plant in Henderson, KY at an opportune moment, right after it had gone out of service and before heat and lights were turned off. For a brief period of time and the benefit of just a handful of visitors, the plant became a museum of its former self, showcasing its unadulterated 1950's machinery and analog controls in a befitting period setting. It was very quiet inside the large hall, except for an air handler whirring in the distance and some water trickling through a leak in the roof. The faint smell of machine oil reminded me that the exhibits were real.
NPR feature about the photographs by Micah Schweitzer for WNIN
The Henderson Project (Henderson), River Cities Project (CoD, University of Kentucky)