Patrick Schneider | On-location Corporate Photography

Manufacturing + Industrial Photography

Patrick Schneider is one of the few professional photographers specializing in photographing manufacturing and industrial processes. Using innovative and dramatic photographic lighting techniques and shooting from unusual angles, Patrick creates distinctive images that help marketers, communications professionals and graphic designers tell the stories of what sets their company apart.  

Patrick specializes in photographing the full range of manufacturing and industrial processes, including heavy manufacturing + industry, clean-room manufacturing, high-tech manufacturing, and more.  

He is based in Charlotte NC, but photographs the manufacturing and industrial operations of companies around the globe.  

  • A man wearing a hard hat and heavy work gloves pauses to have his photo taken in front of Pinch-Point jaws used during manufacturing processes in a plant in Morgonton, NC. The giant pinch point jaws are lit from inside to focus attention on the employee.
  • An employee wearing sterile protective clothing in a clean-room high-tech manufacturing facility looks through a digital optics wafer to give the product visual proportion and close-up detail. The human face, and eyes in particular, draw in readers and cause them to look longer than they otherwise might at photos of products photographed alone. The blue background was created using a blue gel over a flash. A thorough photo shoot should include a wide range of images, including a handful of striking photos that make readers pause and wonder.
  • In this close-up photo, a silhouetted hand holds a thin film silicon-based photovoltaic modules (thin-film silicon solar cells and solar panels). The photo makes a striking abstract illustration that captures viewer attention.  Detail shots are a powerful way to complement manufacturing and industrial photos to tell company stories or to create visual interest through a single image.
  • Photography of an engineer at Siemens Energy in Charlotte standing in front of a giant turbine. The engineer is holding a hard hat and is looking directly at the camera. He is standing in front of the mouth of the turbine, which makes interesting graphic lines angling into the distance behind him. Normally, the inside of the machine is shades of dark grey and black. We pushed bright blue light through the turbine from behind to help the subject pop out in the photo.
  • The driver of a Volvo loader drives four logs into the lot of a pallet company in North Carolina. Special lighting makes it possible to see the face of an employee as he moves logs inside the cab of the tractor/loader. Without purposeful lighting, the employee would be too dark to see.
  • An oil-and-coal stained power plant worker holds a giant wrench and wears a worn hard hat and ear plugs while pausing to have his photo taken in a North Carolina power plant.  Dynamic lighting behind and around the employee helps him stand out from his interesting background.

To focus attention on the employee while emphasizing his trade through visual details of the machines and manufacturing operations surrounding him, we created a six-light set and on-location studio. Two strobes - both lighting the furnace - are gelled to create a warm yellow glow instead of dark, cold factory look.

Two more strobes light the worker from behind, creating a dynamic separation from the dark background. The main light, created from a three-foot-wide Octabox, illuminates the worker. A final strobe light, positioned low and below the Octabox, helps to highlight the worker's legs.
  • The blades of a turbine surround an employee at a turbine manufacturing plant to create product photography and employee environmental portrait in one. Partially constructed turbine blades circle the man (he is inside of the circle). Viewers can see his arms, head and shoulders, as well as several sets of the blades. He is similing.
  • Three workers in high tech manufacturing operations hold samples of the digital wafers they manufacture in a sterile environment. The workers are holding flat, glass-like wafers that are about the size of a softball. All three employees are covered head to toe with white sterile uniforms. Photographing clean-room manufacturing processes or making environmental portraits of employees in sterile environments comes with specific challenges. 

Here we built a small onsite studio using a 9-foot-wide seamless backdrop. The employees work as a team, and I wanted to include every member in the image. Positioning them as a triangle (one tall, two short) kept the trio within the width of the 9-foot backdrop.  Two large  rectangular softbox lights illuminate the group from overhead while another two lights shine on the backdrop to help the workers white uniforms stand out from the white backdrop.
  • A machine operator stares at a product being manufactured a few inches from his face. The photo is taken from a front view, but the manufacturing equipment obscures much of the employee's face. His left eye is visible, but the rest of his face in hidding by the process. 

Images was created using innovate photographic lighting techniques. A red gelled Speedlight was focused on the machinery and was angled straight down to avoid washing light on to the worker. The main light comes from a Speedlight zoomed to 200mm, which tightly focused the lighting on the face of the workers. The third Speedlight strobe was gelled blue to illuminate the background in an effort to separate the worker from the area behind him. 

Artistically applied colored lights helps corporate photographers create images that might otherwise be monotone or dull. Graphic designers and corporate marketers have ample space to drop text and headlines to create advertisements, brochures, sales sheets or other marketing and sales collateral.
  • A long-time employee of a pallet manufacturing plant pauses to have his photo taken in front stacked logs . The man has a thick white beard and is wearing safety glasses and a hard hat (PPE/Personal protective equipment). At their highest, the logs are stacked about 30 logs high.
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  • A data center employee types into a computer as he checks the calabrations of the data center's hard drives. Red and blue gelled lighting makes the bank of hard drives and connecting wires. Taking the photo from a high angle and adding blasts of blue and red highlights enhances the photo's visual interest, helps define the equipment in this otherwise dark and tiny room and expands the range and volume of images created during the shoot.
  • An industrial worker wearing a large visor and personal protective equipment (heavy gloves and safety glasses)  poses outside the manufacturing facility where he works. 

He looks confident, strong and certain. Behind him is a hint of the factory towers close by.  The graphic lines lines of the towers give visual interest and depth.
  • A female employee stands inside a giant turbine at a Siemens manufacturing plant. She is wearing a hard hat and is making notes.  

The photo is shot from overhead in order to show the product and employee simultaneously while also avoiding a background that was busy and distracting. 

The employee portrait was lit with three lights. The main light is a five-foot Octabox, which provides a soft, diffused output that evenly covers the employee with a gorgeous wash of light. We placed the Octabox high above the employee and angled it down. 

Two Speedlight units provided secondary lighting and bursts of colors from orange and blue gels. The colors help separate the employee from the monotone turbine while also pulling in viewer attention.
  • Photographs of employees working  out in the field become more interesting when they incorporate graphic elements, such as the lines of solar panels running toward the worker in the background. Taking the photo from a high angle shows the full scope and size of this solar farm. Taking the photo from ground level wouldn't give readers a good sense of place and scale. The employee is illuminate by one Speedlight strobe below the worker.
  • Manufacturing facilities are often dark and difficult to photograph properly. It's especially difficult to create an employee portrait in which the background behind him or her is also visible. At this manufacturing plant, we liked the graphic lines of the overhead pipes and duct work.  To create multiple photographic layers in the final image, we used a four-light system. The main Speedlight unit is positioned high and is zoomed to 105mm, which focuses the light on the worker and makes it seem as if the worker is being light from existing light from the factory. Three other Speedlight units are gelled with blue and red to illuminate the trail of pipes running overhead. The three Speedlights also help illuminate the machines that are part of the manufacturing operations.
  • Special lighting makes it possible to see the face of an employee as he moves logs inside the cab of a Sennebogen mobile material handler at a pallet manufacturing company in North Carolina. Without strategically placed lighting, the employee would be too dark to see. The Sennebogen 825 handler is bright green and is lifting a log off the ground.
  • A silhouetted woman in the background of the image balances the bright liquid-filled lab flasks at a biomedical engineering firm that specializes in antimicrobial, odor control, and surface modification technologies. The photo has bright colors, including a cobalt blue background.
  • A man wearing a green hard hat and safey glasses drives a forklift in a manufacturing plant. Special lighting makes it possible to see the face of an employee as he operates a Hyster 100 forklift in a North Carolina manufacturing company. Without strategically placed lighting, the employee would be too dark to see. Too much lighting would wash him out.
  • A man wearing a white lab coat and safety glasses looks at the spotted petri dish in his hand. He is shown in profile view, and viewers can see through the petri dish. He is well lit, but then falls to a dark shadow. 

Shadows can be as important as light space in corporate photography. When creating this environmental portrait of an employee at a company that specializes in antimicrobial solutions,  we used a two Speedlight setup to light the employee's face and then fall to dramatic shadow on his left side. Working together, the light and shadow keep viewers focused on the employee's face, the spotted petri dish in his hand and the name of the company on his lab coat.
  • Blue gelled lighting makes a dynamic backdrop for a welder in a plant that manufactures equipment and products for the printing industry. The employee is wearing a welding shield or viser and is holding a blow torch. Four large pipes dominate the foreground of the photo.
  • On-location portraits | Manufacturing photography
  • Action shots | Manufacturing photography
  • A black and white photo of a silhouetted man inside of the mouth of a giant turbine. The man is using a flashlight to inspect the blades of the turbine. As companies spend increasingly more money on continuous improvement processes that add efficiency to the manufacturing processes and ensure product quality and integrity, they're also finding it useful to photograph these corporate brand attributes for marketing and corporate communications purposes. In this photo of an employee of Siemens Energy's Charlotte Turbine-Generator Center inspecting the inside of a stator core, it's easy for prospective turbine customers to visualize the best practices that set Siemens above competitors.
  • Industrial photography | Environmental portraits
  • Close up photo of the profile of a silhouetted man holding what appears to be a measuring gauge. This detail shot of a silhouetted employee examining a piece of equipment gives visual interest and adds to the range of images created at a printing facility.
  • Environmental portraits | Industrial photography
  • Detail shots | Manufacturing photography
  • Environmental portraits | Industrial photography
  • On-location portraits | Interesting jobs
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  • Business in Action | Manufacturing photography
  • On-location portraits | Manufacturing photography
  • Industrial photography | Environmental portraits
  • Business in Action | Manufacturing photography
  • Business in Action | Portraits in labs
  • Product assembly | Employee portraits
  • On-location photography | Business in Action
  • Detail shots | Manufacturing photography
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