Well I had a great time photographing Oil, Gas, Nickel & Coal facilities across Saskatchewan and Alberta last week. Along with hours of photography comes hours of organizing and processing the finished photos. I like to call this “The Grind”.
Yesterday I had great shoot (first of a few) at the Nordex Explosives facility in Kirkland Lake Ontario. This session revolved around the process of creating their unique Econotrim Buttbuster. Econotrim Buttbuster is a one piece custom length bright yellow semi-rigid coiled charge designed for rapid charging of perimeter boreholes in underground mines. Specifically designed for delivering smooth walls and a safer controlled blast in development headings and shaft sinking. Looking forward to creating more images for Nordex Explosives.
I recently received an email inquiring the use of some of my images for a companies marketing materials and within the email was a common sentence I usually see “We have done an exhaustive search of the stock photo sights and are coming up short”. I know that stock photography is readily available and it could be useful when in a tight deadline (unless you create your marketing material a year in a advance) but why would a company want another companies image on their marketing material? On several occasions walking through industry trade shows I have seen the same image on several different booths. Shouldn’t the images in your marketing material be of your company? Your employees? Your products and services? The cost of stock photography to cover the companies branding usually ends up costing more than hiring a professional photographer to create custom images of the company. Your company! I always wondered if the people working the trade show booth get embarrassed when someone asks them who the person is in the picture and they reply “Oh. That’s just a stock photo”. Now I know not all marketing material requires custom images and most of the time advertising companies are on a tight deadline and need something fast, but, if time is available I do encourage to seek out a professional photographer for their photography needs.
I would like to hear other sides of this from other photographers, advertising agencies and companies in regards to this so please comment.
I guess I would consider myself a fabricator of images. Just like all the things mining industrial I photograph there is no quick and easy. I simply don’t pull the images out of my magic camera but carefully plan and execute my “formula” for a creative image. I piece together several components including subject matter, composition, lighting, exposure and post production to create or fabricate my final image. I might seem slower than most photographers but in the end it’s what the client ultimately wants. Quality over quantity….I hope.
Getting ready to sandblast this customized pipe before it heads of to be lined with rubber and then finished off in the spray booth.
Sparks fly everywhere while welders brand their weapon of choice. It’s around the clock process in this Industrial Shop in order to keep up with the supply demand.
Today I found myself back at Fuller Industrial updating their photo archive of the company. I was last there in 2010 and much has changed since my last visit (I do recommend updating your marketing images at least every 1 to 3 years). This time I got to photograph the company’s process from start to finish. It always amazes me how we look at so many things but don’t consider the many steps it takes to get the final product.
For more information on Fuller Industrial check out their website
A Atlas Copco Exploration rep discusses the different products available to the on looking Drill company members.
Stay tuned for more Northern Ontario Exploration Drilling posts
Along with Gold, Silver, Nickle, Oil & Gas I also get to photograph Diamonds. No they are not in beautiful little box, nor are they behind glass display case, but straight from the mines they were found in. I was lucky enough to watch (and photograph) some of the procedures to creating that exquisite sparkle diamond from a piece of rock that looked rather…….well…………bland at the Crossworks Manufacturing facility.
Once in awhile I get asked to tag along on a mine tour when the mine inventors, CEOs, or board of directors are touring the facilities. I enjoy this type of work because I can pretty well just be in the background and photograph what I can. This particular group got to take the images back to their Country with them as a keepsake. Here are just a few.
