My project: Workers - Every job is equally important.

Image from my on going project "Workers"

Ever since I started with photography, I've mostly been taking random photos. I guess nature photo was my main thing, but there was no structure to what I did, or why I did it. So now after i started reading about photography, and got deeper in to it, I figured I should start a project to be more focused on what I want to shoot. 

As Eric Kim so nicely phrased it in his article about projects: Why projects vs single images?

"You can make a statement with a single image, but when put together in a series or a project, they make a much more powerful impact to the viewer." 

Of course if I see something interesting thats not in the "frame" of my project, I'll take the photo. I want a goal, and a reason to go out and take those photos.

So I sat down and thought about what I find the most interesting to shoot, and if there was a pattern in the theme of my photos . After a couple of days, I decided to concentrate on people who are in work situations.


The project.
I think it's important to appreciate what every man and woman do for a living. Take for instance the cleaning ladies/men. No offense, but maybe not the most attractive job. If it wasn't for them, how would all the schools, offices and official buildings look like? I don't dear to think about the consequences if the garbage mens/women weren't doing their job. Put somewhat extremely: Just think about the long term consequences without the cleaning personal or garbage workers. Deceases will be spread much faster. Even chemicals that may be harmful, not only to the people who comes in direct contact with it, but there will also be a ripple effect. Chemicals will sink in to the ground, be taken up by animals, and eventually, end up in our food. How ever. I know there is a lot of garbage and chemicals floating around out there. Especially out in the seas. But thats more related to the every day man throwing garbage in the nature, and not the garbage men doing a bad job. That's really a completely different discussion.

The project is not all about garbage workers, and cleaning personal. What would happened to the world economy if the stock traders stopped doing their job? Or the farmers stopped producing food?
Even the girl behind the desk at Starbucks is doing an important job. Serving coffee, so that the people who grow the coffee beens also have a job. It's really a big circle the whole thing. And if one link gets weak and snap, it could cause more damage than we want.

There is nothing political about this project (at least not at this point). I just want to document workers, and hoping that people starts to think about, and appreciate every working man and woman out there.


In summary.
I think we're taking too many jobs for granted. And I want to document people that keeps the world going. And show that the importance of peoples job, is not always proportional with how much they get paid. 

My intention is not to put well paid workers in a bad light, but rather put low paid workers in a good light. This is what I want to achieve with this project.

I'm hoping to get my own eyes opened to. And learn while the project goes on. Cause who knows. Many I'm wrong (I hope not). That's what I'm gonna find out.

So from about six month to a year from now, the project will be published. I'm not sure how and where yet, but the time will show. The series will contain about 15-20 images.

Thanks for your time. More to come :)