Customer Reviews

By These Hands: Portraits From The Factory Floor

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A fine selection of photos from the factory floor. Photographer Parker chose to focus on blue-collar industries rather than the wider service sector and though the twenty-one companies featured are located in Minnesota these photos could have been taken in any state that has a large industrial base.

Parker's photo style is straight reportage, no gimmicks or dubious angles because what he shoots is interesting enough anyway, whether it's an actual assembly line or guys constructing something big on a factory floor. Most of the shots concentrate on a worker and what they are doing and to break the pace there are quieter images of equipment close-up or maybe part of a plant with no-one in the frame.

I think the book compares very favorable with Lee Friedlander At Work though Friedlander was more concerned with presenting his photo impression of work while Parker's book has a brief caption for each photo and nicely, at the back of the book there is a Minnesota map showing the plant locations and five pages with background copy about the companies. Rather oddly US West (a service company) is mentioned as one of them but it only features in two photos which relate to an industrial dispute.

The book is a handsome design job (thanks to Will Powers at the publishers) though I would have preferred to see the photos in a higher screen that the 175 used and printed on a matt art paper to bring out the detail in so many of the images. Still, this is an excellent look at what goes on in an environment that is not normally seen though millions work in.

***SEE SOME INSIDE PAGES by clicking 'customer images' under the cover.