Energy Photography in San Diego
I have shot energy industry projects in and around San Diego County for many years. It is one of my favorite industries to cover because it is so labor-intensive. I would rather shoot outdoors than indoors. I particularly like renewable energy projects, such as wind and solar energy projects, because they represent a future I can believe in.
The first image was shot for Clipper Windpower, a commercial wind turbine manufacturing company founded in 2001. It designed one of the largest wind turbines in the United States, manufactured in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It was working collaboratively with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The image was shot at the Edom Hills Repowering project in the San Gorgonio Pass, outside of San Diego, which utilizes Clipper Windpower turbines. This repowered wind farm replaced older, less efficient wind turbines with 10 Clipper Liberty turbines, generating a combined nominal capacity of 20 MW. The Edom Hills project is located near Palm Springs, California, and is a significant component of the San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm, one of the earliest and largest wind energy sites in the United States.
The next five images are of technicians at the AltaGas Pomona Energy Storage Facility, where I was asked to make images for AltaGas’ annual report. It was a sprawling facility where I focused on people and the graphic nature of the industrial structures. I even used my assistant as a model when no one was around to photograph.
The purpose of the facility was to smooth out demand spikes, improve system resilience, integrate more renewable energy, and provide frequency regulation and power balancing, but that meant nothing without the people who operate the facility. Consequently, I focus on people, and everything I shoot focuses on the narrative of the process, framed in the context of the location. I have a whole process in this blog post, and it is based on my photojournalism experience. I always focus on the element of labor, without which I would just be photographing structures.
When there are no industrial structures, like when workers are laying gas pipelines, then the focus is on the people and the physical labor involved in the narrative. I also round out the collection of pictures I make with portraits of workers. That is where my commercial photography sensibilities come into play, as in the last image with the liquid gas tanker behind him for context. I used a reflector to bring up the highlights on the subject’s face and keep it natural-looking.
Doing energy photography for industry is rewarding because there is so much to photograph and so much in play that it is hard to fail. My clients hire me because I am over-qualified for all of my jobs. They want to be bulletproof and seek an edge when they have high-stakes industrial photography projects to complete.
If you are seeking an industrial photographer or a renewable energy photographer in San Diego. I am your guy. See a complete portfolio of my industrial work here.
