Photo Slide-Talk
Making Photographs of Vanishing Industry in Brass Valley
North Haven Camera Club
http://www.northhavencameraclub.com/meetings/
Oct. 2, 2018 at 7 PM
free, non-members are welcome
PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: The first time I entered the American Brass tube mill in Waterbury I was overwhelmed and puzzled by a place that shouldn’t have existed and machinery that I didn’t understand.
In my book, Brass Valley: "The Fall of an American Industry I tell of turning my camera toward the giant machine whining and smoking near the front of the shed. I later learned it was the extrusion press, the only one of its kind in the country and the reason men were still at work in this ancient tube mill. For three years men who ran ancient machines explained what they were doing and allowed us to photograph them at their work.
By the time the factory closed in December 2013 I knew its purpose, its rhythms, and its songs. When it closed I learned the journey hadn't ended, and I continued making pictures like the one above, as other workers scrapped and salvaged and detoxified, and when I returned last month, the day after the adjoining lampworks was gutted by fire, and I made one last photograph. The tube mill looked like every other abandoned factory I've photographed, and it was impossible to know what once happened there or what was produced.
Below is a newly processed photograph of Gil, Spike and Bob running the press in 2012. Further down is the photo taken last month, the day after the fire.
In my book, Brass Valley: "The Fall of an American Industry I tell of turning my camera toward the giant machine whining and smoking near the front of the shed. I later learned it was the extrusion press, the only one of its kind in the country and the reason men were still at work in this ancient tube mill. For three years men who ran ancient machines explained what they were doing and allowed us to photograph them at their work.
By the time the factory closed in December 2013 I knew its purpose, its rhythms, and its songs. When it closed I learned the journey hadn't ended, and I continued making pictures like the one above, as other workers scrapped and salvaged and detoxified, and when I returned last month, the day after the adjoining lampworks was gutted by fire, and I made one last photograph. The tube mill looked like every other abandoned factory I've photographed, and it was impossible to know what once happened there or what was produced.
Below is a newly processed photograph of Gil, Spike and Bob running the press in 2012. Further down is the photo taken last month, the day after the fire.
