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Industrial photographer Christopher Payne spotlights the good in American labor

How industrial photographer Christopher Payne spotlights the good in American labor.

“But as I spent more and more time in them and saw them being destroyed, one by one, I began to feel a poignant sense of loss, and, in turn, a personal obligation to document this vanishing typology.” His MTA contact gave him access to a substation in Chelsea, and Payne started making sketches of the equipment there. Payne’s project also stalled during the pandemic, though he seems to have found utility in the extended timeline, using it to shift its scope from one focusing on the long-awaited retirement of the iconic R32 subway car to a broader profile of the MTA’s maintenance efforts. Payne had already announced to the room that there were just “a couple more things I wanted to get” for the piece, but the meeting didn’t properly start until it became clear that this entire project, four years in the making and just one or two photographs away from completion, was a source of some anxiety at the MTA.

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