“Hey, I know that image.” So I am googling my clients and industry news when I come across an image for the latest of issue of Resource World Magazine with an image I created for SSR Mining (via www.pendaproductions.com) at their Sea Bee mine in Northern Saskatchewan. Having an updated image archive of your operations, people and processes makes it simple to provide good quality photography to the industry publications and websites.
It’s always warm in the warm room as I call it. Some are open spaces while others are tight for space where every movement to complete the gold pour process is calculated and timed for maximum safety and efficiency. Looking like astronauts before take off the dance of the gold pour has become one of my favorite things to photograph from start to finish.
Back again, the Jumbo Drill, one of my favorite machines to photograph. This image was captured this past fall deep underground at Island Gold Mine just outside of Wawa Ontario Canada and was recently used displayed in Social Media. https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/industry-news/mining/wawa-area-mine-plans-for-expansion-2024459
Around the clock this Caterpillar 980K and it’s operator work to keep the payload going through the crusher. In the recent months I have been trying to create images of the night shift workers as they tend to get overlooked when creating images.
When photographing equipment I always try to get someone outside the vehicle to give the viewer a better sense of scale, especially if the operator is not directly visible.
There is a difference between capturing movement and movement that was captured. The latter is usually unexpected and due to improper exposure, settings and more than likely user error. I remembered recently for one lesson during my dark room class (a few decades ago lol) we had to capture motion using panning and slow shutter speeds. Combined with a recent facebook post from a friend who was showcasing some amazing motion blur images of the Portland International Raceway, I decided to add more motion to my mining images on my next shoot.
As I saw the haul truck slowly coming towards us I quickly changed my camera settings to a slower shutter speed and politely asked Asteria and Brian to stay very still as it crept by. I wanted to capture the movement of the vehicle behind them and with this shot I got exactly that.
Vale uses a few different methods to manage dust control at their Sudbury Ontario tailings facility. One method (seen here) is the spreading of straw using agricultural equipment across the tailings pond.
This image showcases a few old school lessons I learned in photography composition. “You look at an image like you read a book, from left to right” was mentioned to me early on in my career and it stuck with me ever since.
Using leading lines and creating highlights and shadows with my lighting I draw the viewer into a specific part of the image. In this case I used the leading lines of the truck to draw your attention to the main subject while utilizing some background lighting for impact. This overall composition leaves room for “copy” on the left side of the image over the negative space of the truck while drawing your attention onto the main subject of the miner and tablet. As well with this composition the image can be cropped vertically isolating the subject thus giving a designer several options for layout placement.
Creating images for the MacLean Engineering fleet has taken me all over Ontario and Quebec above ground as well as under. Visiting the Agnico Eagle Mines in Northern Quebec was a great experience as the crew I was with as well as the professionalism of the Agnico employees aloud us to create some stunning images to add to the MacLeans Marketing image arsenal.
