Bolton Emerson Americas: Alchemy

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The second day I shot at the machine shop, two of the gigantic King Milling Machines were busy at work, spinning metal into ‘gold’ for Bolton Emerson Americas.

When shooting HDR, I usually try to avoid motion. It means lots of masking (at least) and it can result in unusable images. This is different. The blur of the motion creates a wonderful contrasting element to the cold hard steel of the machine. The warm glow of the shop lights don’t hurt either.

I wanted to to get right on top of the machines and shoot wide, at 16mm. so I asked my new friend Frank, (20 year employee of BEA) if I could photograph the action. Frank was more than accommodating, even offering to sweep the metal shavings away so I could better position my tripod.

You can see both machines working in this image, one in the foreground, one in the background. I also have a closer shot of the second machine. You’ll see that later in this series.

As far as what these machines are doing, I’ll let Frank explain the process.