Feature - The Photobook
Initially the grain silos were made out of wood and the elevators lifting the grain out of the ships to the top of the silos were steam driven: as a consequence, fires were extremely common! However, 1906 saw the construction of the American elevator and silo, Buffalo’s first tall (~125-feet) cylindrical silos using slip-formed reinforced concrete. This rapidly became the dominant form of silo construction and came to define and characterize the Buffalo skyline. The strength of reinforced concrete is what has preserved so many of the silos as it’s very difficult and expensive to demolish. Think of inter-continental missile silos, only above ground! From a photographer’s point of view, this is a paradise of industrial archaeology: the elevators and silos are unique and very dramatic subjects against the skyline and Buffalo river; inside lies a maze of abandoned machinery and equipment, warehouses, offices and labs. And, as much of the machinery had to be installed on the floor above the top of the silos, it meant climbing seemingly endless staircases up and down the silos and elevators (largely in the dark!) or, alternatively, dropping down into dank basements to the conical steel bin-bottoms and conveyors that took the grain out of the silos. The resulting images make it all immensely worthwhile! The project all came together in book form so that I could place the images in context: to explain the role that the unique economic infrastructure and local innovation and engineering played in creating these architectural icons; to illustrate the mechanics as to how the silos and elevators worked together to store and move grain; and to show the ancillary labs, offices and other facilities. I used Blurb to publish the book as I was already familiar with using it from previous projects and knew the format would work and the reproduction would be acceptable. http://www.johneatonphotography.com/gallery_625971
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