Photo

For this week’s Look, we sent Brett Beyer to photograph the Chrysler auto plant in Detroit where the Dodge Viper is manufactured. Recently I spoke to Beyer about how he made his pictures.

How did you create the bird’s-eye image of the assembly line?

By using a boom rig that I built, I suspended the camera up near the ceiling, about 15 feet up. From down below, with a laptop computer, I controlled all the functions of the camera — the exposure, aperture and shutter speed. I moved the rig around the floor and covered the whole auto assembly line, section by section. Then, in the editing process, I took those images, those jigsaw pieces, if you will, and blended them together in Photoshop so it’s one continuous image.

What’s the advantage of this approach? Couldn’t you place the camera high above the plant floor and take one photograph using a wide-angle lens?

This is like a Google map of the inside of a building. Because of the ceiling height in the plant, the highest I could get my camera was about 15 feet up, which wouldn’t allow me to photograph that entire area with one shot. Also, if I did it in one shot, I’d have cables and lighting fixtures looming large in the foreground, which would block the view of the assembly line.

Two other images in the photo essay are also photo illustrations, right?

The two vertical images of the assembly line were made using a tilt-shift lens and three separate exposures. They were stitched together in Photoshop and are essentially vertical panoramas. I did this so I could capture more of the ceiling and floor space.

The photographer Andreas Gefeller uses the same shooting-overhead process that you did for the horizontal picture of the assembly line. Were you influenced by his work?

The first image that I ever saw using this technique was of an architecture studio by Iwan Baan. I’m also really influenced by images of sculptures by Gordon Matta Clark. It’s not completely analogous, but the way Clark would cut a building in half, then remove sections, and cobble together the remaining parts — I love the way he dealt with perspective as it related to architecture.

How long did it take you to capture the assembly line from overhead?

It was shot over two days. One thing I find interesting about doing this type of photograph is how I’m creating a photo over multiple days. This stretches my conception of what a photograph can be. Without the constraint of a single moment, I can create an experience of a place that is both real and constructed.