I65 & Beyond
Back in May we were tasked to shoot for our friends at Jones Bros. as they added two lanes to I65 on the TN KY border. There we were at 5:00AM (they had already been out there for over an hour) but we photographers need our key light (AKA the sun) and our beauty sleep to be able to shoot. Immediately entering these worksites 3 things become apparent:
Precautions - In the world of construction safety is so important! You have to be rocking your PPR at all times. You have to have a constant awareness of what’s going on around you and the work that needs to get done.
Patience - When doing jobs like paving you have to keep time because you have a lot of ground to cover but you also can’t rush good work. Slow and steady wins the race, building a road has to be carefully crafted for long lasting results.
Comradery - The folks on these sites that Jones Bros. are employing are hard working honest people who understand the importance of their greatly underappreciated work. They have to see a lot of each other and have to push through long hours and sometimes brutal conditions but every site I’ve visited they’ve been jovial and kind towards one another with a level of friendly collaboration you don’t expect when you think about construction sites.
So with all that in mind how do we as photographers approach showcasing all of that? It’s all about variety and knowing what to get and when to get it.
When showcasing precautions I like to shoot intentionally in close up, that’s where you really let details take the wheel.
When trying to convey the long day and all that needs to get done, go wide allow yourself to show the scale of the work. Show off the crazy machinery and all the hands it takes to make it happen. As I like to call it “the ecosystem” showing the flow of the work.
Then my favorite part of the process. Showing the people that work there. Take advantage of a 50mm lens on these, really allow the people’s faces to tell the story, these are the moments you wait for. These are the times when let the camera fall to the hip, build a connection with your subject and create trust between you, your subject, and the lens separating you two.
All of this to say, it is always a pleasure to work with our friends over at Jones Bros. and are so proud of the art we get to create from the craft they’ve been building for years and we cannot wait to share more of that with you all in the future.