This past semester I found myself working towards a goal – to find a way to document the limestone industry in a unique way.  More specifically, to gain access so that my time wasn’t spent peering over a fence or spreading bad will by being a nuisance through photographing people or business against their wishes.  As a diversion I found myself drawn into a second project this semester working on a project titled, “The Beta Project”.

While in many ways the fraternal house that I chose was a means of easy access that participated hard in sports, academics, charity and enjoying life.  During the past several weeks I found myself jumping between Greek activities trying to dig deep for a story and humping hills and girders at a working quarry.  While I knew little about fraternities outside of parties, it was a look into a life that reminded me a bit of dorm life as an undergraduate – though better organized, with far more activities, and relationships that extended far beyond graduation.

Amid working races, documenting hockey games, visiting the house at various hours, and simply looking to prove that I was less an outsider – I found trust within this group was something that was hard to share. Looking back I feel that working close with the council would have offered perhaps more access though I wonder perhaps if the question remains to what?  While a great experience and an excellent series came out of the images, in the end most of the series revolved around parties, studying, and competition.  In the end, I feel that my Beta Project, while there are a few pieces that I would like to see reworked, by and large the series is complete.  Since most of the images were submitted last week (week 12).  To avoid repetition I will instead be focusing this week to my final series, Stone Cold.

Going into the limestone project I quickly came to find out that the industry is very diverse and far from dead.  Certainly, there are old quarries and the industry has reshaped itself over its lifetime.  The series as it stands is much more diverse than just this simple set of images.  Far more can be said and as a whole I tried to keep a balance between that of mine safety, the people that work the industry, where they work, with a splash of lyrical expression thrown into to make the images pop.

Though this past semester was spent working with Rogers Group, I still have the stone cutters and the quarries that mine large blocks of stone to document.  In the end I see much more coming out of this project and it is something that I will continue to work on over the coming year to finish it out.

Image 1
Rogers Group Inc. – In the limestone Industry located in Bloomington, Indiana they are perhaps one of the most diversified of products offering fine grind to course grind stone.  Their stone is used in such diverse products from chicken feed to add calcium to help make eggs stronger to scrubbers on coal fired energy plants, to rock used in construction of roads and buildings.  Even at night, the company seems to live and breathe with a life of its own.

Image 2

Morning Wakeup Call – Rogers Group operates both an open pit and mine on their property that both produce a different type of material.  While both produce limestone, the density of the rock and age varies.  In the following image the morning shift looks on while the operations manager, Joe Papp, discuss the importance of safety.

Image 3

Fine Grind – One of the operators fills a truck from a silo at the fine grind plant.  This part of the plant is runs day and night.  Because of the fine silt-like nature of the limestone the dust becomes a real issue when winds kick up dust clouds.  To help combat this problem water trucks spray the grounds.

Image 4

Altered Landscapes – One of the hazards of walking this area is the fine dust that becomes saturated with water.  As seen in this image, after a particularly heavy rainfall, water washed dust off the equipment where it settles next to the building creating an alien-like landscape.

Image 5

Dust Cloud – Dust in the fine grind and course grind areas are almost always present.  Pictured here the course grind plant kicks out three sizes of rock through an assortment of grates and conveyors.  Like the fine grind plant, the course grind runs 24 hours a day.

Image 6

Prepping the Shot – A worker from Austin Powder preps a blast hole by draining any water that may have seeped into the hole drilled earlier in the week.  Close behind the blast supervisor files the hole with a mixture of ANFO (Ammonium Nitrate and Fuel Oil), a blast cap and a fuse.  In all, most runs are typically 48 holes that take about 8 hours to setup and blast.  In comparison to the mine, the surface blast nets about 120 metric tons of rock per blast whereas the mine only sees about 40 metric tons.

Image 7

Moving the Load – Pictured here, one of the many loader operators are responsible for seeing that production remains consistent.  Their jobs range from loading trucks with raw materials for the plant, and loading train cars and trucks for customers.  While versatile, their skill with their equipment requires the extreme ambidexterity as they maneuver peddles and levers to move raw material to finished product.

Image 8

Wash Tub Loader – A loader scoops up material to be placed in the wash tub where materials are separated to create three different grinds of rock from course to fine.  While this material does not make a profit, it is waste material that would normally be fill that ends up in material like roads for building materials.

Image 9

Breathing In – Early morning on Friday’s with the break to mining activities at a close for the week, condensation builds up as the day starts to heat up that layer the mine with a thick layer of fog.

Image 10

Loading Up – A loader fills a truck with a load of loose rock from the previous night’s demolition.  In all, 4-5 shaped charges are set off inside the mine 2-3 times per week.  Due to the tight working conditions only the most skilled are allowed to operate the loaders.

Image 11

Scaling the Walls – Operations Manager, Joe Papp looks as on a scaler looks for loose wall on the walls and ceiling that could potentially crush vehicles or people.  An important part of safety, checking for loose material on the walls is something that has to be done after any demolition and is something that operators have to be constantly on the lookout.

Image 12

Conservation – Part of the operations at Rogers Group includes conservation of land and water.  This part of the mine is used for water storage while still other parts that are more than 60 years old are backfilled and currently serve as the rail yard.

Stone Cold

For my Documentary Photography course this past Spring semester I spent part of my time working with Beta Theta Pi.  The first part of the series I posted earlier this year in a series titled, Dropping the Puck on Cancer.  The series covers the annual fundraising  Hockey event between Beta Theta Pi and Sigma Chi.  The other part of my time I spent evolving a story with a the Limestone Industry here in Bloomington.  While the later project is almost a wrap, the work with Beta Theta Pi here at Indiana University has finished.  I still have work to complete on their series as a whole that will cover their house and help to describe a bit about what life is like being a Beta Theta Pi.  To all the Beta’s that took the time to open their doors and made me feel welcome this past semester including Eric Tatum Jr., Eric Anderson, William Kragie, and all the other members of the Beta Little 500 team – thank you!

Be sure to check back later this summer when I have the final series completed.

Warmly,

Brian Krecik

Preservations began early in the semester as a way to reflect on the simpler aspects of life as I recall them as a youth.  Growing up in a small home with 6 brothers and sisters, to help make ends meet; my mother, besides growing many of our own vegetables, preserved many of the seasons harvest by canning them.  This aspect, along with how I wanted to present this series helped to inform how I wanted to approach my subject and bring their essence to the forefront.  Early on I knew that I would be working with color, though I had wavered at the time with the decision that I might evolve the piece to focus on form rather than form and color.  I soon found early in the genesis of this project that through the use of contrast of color and contrast of saturation I was able to make the images take on new meaning and create just the right amount of visual tension to hold the viewers’ attention.

A few of my classmates have alluded to color choices as an informative aspect to describe a motive or a dialogue.  In some ways one might find this informative.  With regards to my imagery however I chose to focus on lighting was not weighted.  By being “weighted” I infer that the light itself was balanced with side lighting equally lighting both sides of my subject so that the transition from the shadow side of the subject and the specular highlights might be minimized.  Another aspect of weighting a light source, as I currently use the term, is the white balance was set and the lighting itself was not gelled. What this left me with is are colors as our eyes see them rather than images with color cast.   Finally, I consciously reflected on color palettes so that the right balance of color was used in both saturation and in compositional compliments so that balance could be maintained from image to image.

This is not to say that I did not experiment.  Early on I considered formatting options as well as composition changes to the lighting.  Examples of this can be seen in the following two images.  In the first image (Figure 1) I use a third light to create a spotlight effect behind my subject.  In many ways I am drawn to this image for it helps frame the subject more fully and helps resolve any conflicts that the formative elements in the image create.  Where this image fails is that it is too overt, too “in your face”.  Rather than forcing the viewer to resolve the image I prefer the image resolve the conflict created by the contrast by forcing the viewer to come to terms with the formal elements.  I felt that adding the lighting cheapens the imagery and in turn says to the viewer, “To hold you here I am going to tell you where to look and what to think.”  What I prefer is that the images inform but not in a way that is like being told what to see. Rather I prefer that it is something that the viewer come to grasp more fully the longer they view the image.

The next aspect that I looked to explore was contrast of analogous colors (Figure 2).  As I explored this concept I came to find out that the colors themselves, while still using contrast of saturation, created too much visual harmony.  While there was still enough visual tension to create adequate contrast, the image itself was left with too much cohesion between the color relationships to really hold the viewer by the bootstraps and keep them engaged.  Visually the image is far too calm created by the color pallet and their relationship to each other.  This coupled with how the image formally is centered creates for a leveled image that fails to slap the viewer in the face.

I came to the conclusion that how I used color and how that color contrasted with its compliment created the necessary visual tension that increased the plasticity of the overall image and engaged the viewer’s senses.  Along the way I found the imagery taking on a transformative quality and that the sum of the parts were greater qualitatively than the individual parts.  Cohesively, the images as a collection, in its simplest of forms really described more than what a sweet potato is.  Rather, they help inform and answer the question about what is form or what is life.  To express this visually I found that color played a major role in creating the necessary tension that simply was lacking from their black and white counterpart and in the end an image became a transformative process than simply a means to record.

Preservations

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Following are images form a series that I am currently working on for a class documentary project.  I will be adding more to this and making changes to the overall content as the project evolves over the coming months.

My vision behind the series was, simply put, to celebrate the fall harvest.  This piece evolved a bit and based off the suggestion of Nik last semester, I went from the table to hanging the vegetables vertically.  What really promoted me was the research I began in how veggies were preserved during the cooler months by storing them in the cellar.  This coupled with a devolution of the object into something more form based, I began to find ways to sculpt light and color and create a series that spoke to the language of what we grow.  While the series originated in color, and it is largely incomplete, I find that black and white adds a quality to the images that the color, while it accentuates and creates great contrast, the black and white helps to shape the image into something more than the core of its parts.My vision behind t he series was, simply put, to celebrate the fall harvest.  This piece evolved a bit and based off the suggestion of Nik Clements last semester, I went from the table to hanging the vegetables vertically.  What really promoted me was the research I began in how vegetables were preserved during the cooler months by storing them in the cellar.  This coupled with a devolution of the form into something more form based, I began to find ways to sculpt light and color and create a series that spoke to the language of what we grow.  While the series originated in color, and it is largely incomplete, I find that black and white adds a quality to the images that the color, while it accentuates and creates great contrast, the black and white helps to shape the image into something more than the core of its parts.

Check back as this series evolves over the coming semester.

Warmly,

Brian Krecik

This past weekend I worked with a classical guitarist who has performed in 19 countries on four continents – Nemanja Ostoich.  He is a dynamic, powerful, and passionate performer whose ability to bring out the lyricism and dynamics in a piece. I highly recommend seeing him in concert and while you are at it, stop by his website and pick up a copy of his CD, “First Born“.

A bit about the artist…

“A native of Serbia, Nemanja Ostoich has graduated from Music High School Kosta Manojlovic in the class of Professor Bosko Radojkovic and soon received his Bachelor Degree in Music from the University of Belgrade studying with Professor Srdjan Tosic.  Nemanja has completed both the Master’s Degree and the Artist Diploma Program at Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University, Bloomington, under the guidance of Maestro Ernesto Bitetti, where he is currently completing the Doctor in Musical Arts program.” From the artist’s website (http://www.nemanjaguitar.com/about).

If you are an undergraduate or graduate student here at Indiana University’s Jacob School of Music or are a performing artist in Theater and Drama and are looking for promotional photo, head shots, or portraits contact me.  I have a special promotional rate this spring 2012 semester with options for either prints or print ready images for a nominal fee.

Enjoy the photos…