Hype Manufacturing in Corona just outside LA in California use incredible machines to cut through metal with amazing accuracy the cutting machines deploy either lasers or mega high pressure water. Its amazing stuff, even their name plate is cut out of two inch thick steel!
[ 4 ] comments
- This is an amazing image. I remember when I worked for a while as a young picture researcher that you were one of the photographers who worked with the British photographer Bob Gannon at your agency in London – Insider Photos or Insighted Ltd. Not sure of the name. Is that the ‘Bob’ you’re talking about? Maybe not. If it is, I heard some bad news a while ago through the London rumour mill that he’d died earlier this year – some say at his own hand, others through a protracted illness. Either way very sad I think. I remember his photojournalism being around quite a bit at one point in the UK and that it was really quite good. This blog is a great place to visit. Inspiring and often quite moving. I noticed you had an exhibition in the US. Do you plan any shows in the UK? I teach photography and would love to bring along a class of my young students. One of our subjects is how photographers interpret other countries through their work.
Joe @ October 23, 2006, 5:17 am
- I read your mail and my eyes filled with tears……..Bob Gannon? Yes……Bob Gannon…….thats my friend Bob I was referring too…….. yes his work from the West Bank and Gaza and from Tiananmen Square and other notable stories won numerous awards and lots of attention….. he was obsessed with photography and obsessive about the community of photojournalists and picture editors that we operated as part of………. he was very high profile……. he was sort of completely part of it and simultaneously nothing like any of it….. partly because he was so analytical about who every body was in that community…… and what motivated them ……… he had a hilarious ability to cut through it all and parody the whole business…… and make fun of the people involved while at the same time caring deeply about it all……. caring especially about the people and the stories we covered…………I guess he was always slightly separate from it all………He was a funny mix of artist and ambition of media-main-stream and ultra-leftist-nut…… Sure all of this made him a crazy unpredictable person to work with and have as a friend but he was a fantastic contributer to the overall optimism, drive and the life of our agency ‘Insight’ ……..When he had chucked it in and left our agency we were all dejected…. I remember a distraught Tony White a photographer nothing to do with ‘Insight’ a contract guy on ‘The Times’ running over to me in a car park…….”Jez…….Tell me its not true! Tell me its not true?……… Its not true… that Bob Gannon has packed it in!?….. Right?” With genuine feeling and obvious distress he talked about how Bob was a ‘true artist’ and a person of ‘true genius’………..how we had lost a ‘shining star of British photojournalism’. This was true and no one missed him more than me but he was also a ‘true artist’ that found some aspects of straight forward professional photography hard to stomach……… he could not photograph things he found uninteresting…….. for bread and butter jobs I would say you must shoot at the very least 2 whole rolls of film (I would have shot 10)……he would come back with six frames…..clearly the client would not be happy………. but even as he was facing bankruptcy he was still out shooting hundreds of rolls of film on photo projects so very unlikely ever to see the light of day and certain to not make any money. I still have some expensive prints that he’d commissioned as part of his gay ‘age of consent’ project that he was still working on at the end. He described in one of his crazy reenactments showing these pictures to a homophobic picture editor who appeared to be in physical distress while looking at them. He was a true artist and a genius but not necessarily a good ‘professional’ photographer. But he was certainly a dear friend who I have missed greatly since his departure from my life. The time we worked together and our joint trips to the the West Bank and Gaza remain some of the most formative times and important memories of my early life as a photojournalist. Its not that we did not take seriously the important stories we covered, we certainly did. It wasn’t that we didn’t care about the lives of the people we covered because we certainly did care. But Its true that we did not approach this work in a dull earnest way. We had a lot of fun and one thing is for sure it was never as much fun without Bob……Ive still never quite made it to regarding myself as a proper grown up, in a grown up world, but while I worked with Bob there was never even any pretense. Joe………. Even as I put that email on the blog I was slightly afraid of a reply like yours. Do you have anyway of confirming these terrible rumors or putting me in touch with someone who could? Thank you for taking time to look at the blog and thank you so much for replying to that last post I am glad you did even if what you are conveying is so sad. Jez XX
jez @ October 23, 2006, 2:05 pm
- From the account you’ve just given it seems you were much closer to the man than I at first realised, and must apologise for just dumping this kind of information here in the way I did. I have no way of confirming it, being very much on the periphery of that world as such, and not having been involved in ‘researching’ for a good many years now. But names tend to stick with you from certain periods when you’re really engaged in things and his named jumped out at me when I heard some casual remarks from two old associates I met in the street. The associates too (also once involved in photography) were not a hundred percent sure of the information, but it seems odd that the rumour should exist at all if there was no basis to it. I certainly hope it’s not true. I have no way of contacting these people either, unfortunately. I hadn’t seen them in years and probably won’t see them again for a good many more, if at all. Even so, I will ask around and should I garner any further information I will certainly drop you a line.
Joe @ October 23, 2006, 3:47 pm
- Joe….Thanks again for taking time to comment and passing on the things you have heard about BG. By the way thanx for your earlier kind remarks about the blog. At the moment I have no plans to exhibit in the UK…. but its a good thought….. maybe I should. I’ll certainly announce it here if I do. Cheers Jez XX
jez @ October 23, 2006, 9:09 pm
