Engineering your Light

Another day, another cool industrial shoot. This time it's Farra, a Dunedin Engineering firm with its roots in some of the earliest foundries in Otago. In contrast to Speight's Brewery, the combination of fluoro light, dull steel and concrete buildings made for some pretty dull surroundings, so it was time to get the flashes, clamps and gels and add some colour to the equation.



On the left, that's John Whitaker, Managing Director of the firm, and the first not to be connected to the pioneering Smellie family who founded Iron Rolling Mills Otago out in Green Island in the 1880's.

My Dad did this kind of work for over 40 years in shipyards, hydro projects, smelters and so forth.  I even worked alongside him in an Aluminium smelter for a few summers, so I get a real kick out of shooting in these environments.  It reminds me of the great era of postwar engineering when men with calipers and welding gear could do anything - or so little kids like me thought.  As well as the big stuff like building maintenance units, hydroelectric turbine components and specialist cranes, Farra make a lot of cool stainless steel stuff like home breweries and the small rotating screen here. Again, we didn't want to interrupt work for too long, so this was another run and gun job, but I think everybody's going to be pretty happy when they see the results in my book.