David Lynch’s factory photographs – now on show at The Photographers’ Gallery in London – reveal the great filmmaker’s lifelong fascination with abandoned industrial buildings. The architectural compositions echo his most revered work – think of the claustrophobic attack on domesticity in Eraserhead, the looming shacks of Twin Peaks, the vortex swirl of Mulholland Drive’s nightmarish party scene. The black-and-white stills depict menacing silhouettes, gutted interiors and billowing smokestacks, using blurred light and layered textures to stretch the possibilities of photography to their outer limits.

Dazed Digital: Why are you so attracted to abandoned factories?

David Lynch: I’ve had a love affair for a long time with factories and industry – primarily the smokestack industry. I love all the textures associated with it. It’s so much about the beautiful light and shapes.

DD: When you enter them, is it like walking on to the set of one of your own movies?



David Lynch: No, I don’t think I’ve ever shot a scene in factories like these. It’s an incredible mood. I feel like I’m in a place that’s just magical, where nature is reclaiming these derelict factories. It’s very dreamy. Every place you turn, there’s something so sensational and surprising – it’s the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour.

“The world of Eraserhead was inspired by Philadelphia, a bit of an industrial city. I fell in love with Philadelphia for its architecture and mood. But now all the cities are looking more and more the same. The real treasures are going away”

DD: Is the world of these factories akin to that of Eraserhead and Mulholland Drive?



David Lynch: Yes. Every film has its story. It has to be a certain place, with a certain light, with certain things said by certain people. Then you make a world in cinema that didn’t exist before. The world of Eraserhead was inspired by Philadelphia, a bit of an industrial city. I fell in love with Philadelphia for its architecture and mood. But now all the cities are looking more and more the same. The real treasures are going away; the mood they create is going away. Graffiti is one of the worst things that ever happened to a city.

DD: Do you have a favourite from the series?

David Lynch: I love all of them. But again, it’s the mood, shapes and textures – it’s something that thrills my soul. The way the light can fall on a factory is the same way the light can fall on a body. One slight turn of the light and it’s a brand new thing. It just keeps going on and on and on.

DD: Why did you choose to shoot photographs of these factories versus a film?

David Lynch: Every medium is its own thing and is infinitely deep. And there’s a connection, obviously, between cinema and still photography. For me, still photography was born out of cinema, but a still is just one frame that pulls you deeper and deeper in. It’s about the beauty of one image.

“In north England, I was in search of what I was told would be the greatest factories. The time I was up there, they were destroying one smokestack every week.

All the factories were being torn down. It was a nightmare for me. I couldn’t believe it”

DD: Is the disused industrial aesthetic being forgotten today?

David Lynch: It’s disappearing. In north England, I was in search of what I was told would be the greatest factories. The time I was up there, they were destroying one smokestack every week.

All the factories were being torn down. It was a nightmare for me. I couldn’t believe it. I missed them by just a couple of years.

DD: The photos resonate with a kind of veiled terror. Is the exploration of good and evil important to you?

David Lynch: No, but there’s a certain amount of fear connected to industry for me. As a child, I grew up in the northwest of America, where there weren’t any giant factories, none of that mood. But my mother was from Brooklyn, so we visited my grandparents a lot, and there it was a whole different story. I got a big fear of subways and the certain smell of a city. Sometimes these factories capture some of that. But mostly, it’s a kind of beauty connected to fire and smoke, steel, concrete, glass and all kinds of incredible machine parts. And nature reclaiming them. The whole thing is a dance. And it’s beautiful to be in that dance, photographing it.