Industrial photographer

Industrial Portraiture Adventures


Admittedly, when I boarded on my first Airnorth flight in 2 years to head to Vancouver for a job, I did not expect I’d be standing approximately 130 feet underground just a few days later…

Did I deep breathe the entire walk down here? Yes, yes I did.

This is yet another reason I love this crazy job of ours…every week is an adventure, and this past month, that adventure took the GBP Team to two of Pomerleau’s latest projects in Vancouver, creating environmental portraits of their crews on the job! 

The Superintendent’s daily commute to work.

Industrial sites are always incredible to photograph, not only because they’re visually impressive, but also as it’s fascinating to learn just how much detail, planning, and person hours go into the structures and systems that we use, and likely take for granted, every single day.

In this case we were able to work with the teams building a new outfall pipeline for waste water, and seeing the construction that is involved in laying 200-580 meter long tunnels. Impressive to say the least!

From tug boats, to tunnels, to cranes and road building techniques…it was a whirlwind!
Here are a few of the images we created, and a few BTS along the way. A HUGE thanks to the Pomerleau crew’s we worked with. You guys were so informative and enthusiastic..we can’t wait to come back again!

And a little BTS for ya…

Photo 1: The boys loading all the gear while I take photos.

Photo 2: Gary and I had differing reactions to when I dared to question Siri and got us lost trying to get to our hotel. NEVER QUESTION SIRI.

Photo 3: As is the custom when you haven’t left home in 2 years, we pac-manned our way through the city in our down time. This is Dinner #2 of the evening

Photo 4: In depths! 130 feet underground in a tunnel!

Photo 5: Our boy Stu doing his best to shelter our gear during a sudden Vancouver downpour (luckily only lasted about 5 min)

Photo 6: When it rains…shelter under the bridge and keep it movin’

Northern Solar

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Not everyone knows this, but Gary’s former career before he took the leap and started GBP, was actually as a Journeyman Electrician. He had spent years before that installing communication towers throughout western Canada, and then when he moved to the Yukon, he switched gears into the electrical trade.

Specifically, he wanted be an electrician so he could specialize in renewable energies, and in particular the growing field of solar.

So needless to say, now over 10 years later, when we were able to team up with Solvest, a northern Canadian based solar company, to create some new imagery for them, Gary was pretty stoked!

We’ve actually had our eye on the Solvest team for quite a while. They’re a super cool company that not only specializes in residential, commercial and industrial solar installs, but also is working on northern food security issues through their Cropbox product, as well as research and consultation.

Part of the reason we love working in industrial settings, and in this case specifically with solar installation, is that Gary feels at home on the work sites. He knows the safety standards, he understands the principals behind the systems, and this allows him a unique perspective and the ability to really know which elements to highlight when photographing both the site and the employees on the job.

On this particular project, he was even able to work along side some of the crew he used to work with as an electrician, just this time, he was behind a camera instead of helping with the install itself!

So on that note, here are a few of the images we got to create of the Old Crow solar project. This project is expected to offset annual diesel consumption by up to 30% for the community! It’s a super unique system, custom to Old Crow as it’s east/west facing to take advantage of the long summer days, generating power at the time of day when people are at home, utilizing it the most!