Thursday, January 15, 2009

Paper City Brewery: A Photographic Exploration Part I

Wednesday night I joined my friend Peter for a tour of the Paper City Brewery in Holyoke, Ma. We were supposed to meet with a few other photographers (Holyoke Pixel Club). However, weather factors and job responsibilities kept them from joining us. The owner of the brewery gave us permission to explore the brewery on our own and make photographs at our will. We stood amongst cases of freshly brewed, bottled, labeled, and packaged beer that is produced there. Inside the brewery the temperature was almost the same as outside. The extreme cold did not stop us from walking around and making photographs. Below are the HDR photographs that I made. In a second post, A Photographic Exploration Part II, I will have some photographs up showing the employee’s process inside the brewery.

As we walked through the building absorbing what we were viewing, our cameras were ready to capture the constructed compositions that were uniquely arranged. I fell in love with the architecture that this particular building has to offer. Expressing my interested to Peter, he quickly informed me that a few floors below us, there is an entire level, some 12,000 sq ft available. Immediately this set off a few ideas of a studio and business location. I would love to have a studio set in a massive building like this. Ample amounts of nature light, massive windows, brick walls, exposed wooden ceilings, hardwood floors, and a piece of history is something I would like to relocated into. Needless to say, exploring the brewery, photographing, and learning a little bit more about the History of Holyoke, has yet again given me more of a reason to continue to photograph and work in Holyoke.

Peter and me sat around for a little while discussing our plans and ideas. We both share common ideas and interests with our photography. Yet we approach it in two totally different styles. During our discussion, a few of the volunteer employees came through as they were about to leave. They stopped to talk with us and see why we were photographing them, the brewery, and what our general purpose for being there was. They were very curious and eager to hear our reasons. A few explanations and a few conversations later we weren’t perceived as some guys working with cameras.

Part II will have more of an essay and discuss a possible longer term project about the brewery.

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2 warm toned




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Paper City Pano

1 comment:

VanDog said...

I love the Freight Elevator, and the aluminum kegs have a nice look too. When you get a chance do the panorama again. Maybe during daylight hours to capture the cityscape through the windows. That shot has potential.

Hey! Did you notice Greg's appreciation of our work?