The hidden beauty inside American factories

We are surrounded by so much ingenuity these days that it can be easy to take it all for granted.

The clothes we wear. The appliances in our homes. The vehicles we travel in. Just to name a few.

But a new photo book might provide a greater appreciation for those products that make our lives that much better.

For the past 10 years, photographer Christopher Payne has been visiting dozens of factories across the United States and documenting how various items are manufactured. His book, “Made in America,” shines a spotlight on American industry with images that are eye-catching, surprising and beautiful.

“Every time I step onto a factory floor, I feel the same excitement and sense of possibility,” Payne writes in the book. “My photographs are a celebration of the making of things, of the transformation of raw materials into useful objects, and the human skill and mechanical precision brought to bear on these materials that give them form and purpose.”

Payne was trained as an architect, so he’s always had an interest in how things are designed, how they’re assembled and how they work.

He tries to transmit that curiosity through his photos, whether he’s watching people make something as small and simple as a pencil or as large and complex as a nuclear submarine.

“My goal is to make a picture that can stand on its own as something beautiful while also conveying useful information that enables the viewer to gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of the subject,” he said.

Inside Payne’s book, you can find behind-the-scenes photos that show the making of airplanes, electric vehicles and wind turbines. Guitars and pianos. Even Peeps, those iconic marshmallow candies commonly seen over Easter.

Most of us have never stepped into a factory, and we never will. Payne got rare access to many.

“I was amazed by the scale of some factories, and the fact that a whole town and the surrounding economy could be tied to one place,” he said. “Some factories were so vast that it was impossible to see end to end, and we had to get around on a golf cart. Finding the right picture was like searching for a particular leaf on a tree.”

But it was a small factory — a trip to a pencil factory in New Jersey — that really opened Payne’s eyes.

“Photographing pencils made me appreciate the value of overlooked, everyday objects and that I could find amazing opportunities in my own backyard if I looked hard enough,” he said. “In this case, not some modern, high-tech factory in California, but rather, a nondescript family-owned brick building on a quiet street in Jersey City.”

Payne started his 10-year journey by photographing old textile mills around New England, and he was also inspired by a trip to the Steinway & Sons piano factory in New York City.

“That’s the original factory where they make these world-famous pianos, and it happens right in Queens,” he said. “I come from a family of musicians, so the factory had a profound, spiritual impact on me because of that personal connection.”

The piano photos are a perfect example of the “sweet spot” that Payne says he is always looking for when he photographs a new factory. There’s no mistaking that what you are looking at is a piano, but he tries to find a fresh perspective, looking at the various deconstructed parts as they are built into a finished product.

Payne says that while decades of outsourcing and a flood of cheap imports have undeniably hurt many sectors of American manufacturing, he has noticed a resurgence and that he’s optimistic about the future.

“In the last few years, the industrial landscape in America has been re-energized by pandemic supply-chain shortages, competition with China, national security issues, energy concerns, and federal legislation,” he said. “The seismic shift to electric vehicles has been a windfall for car companies, which are scrambling to build new mega campuses and entirely new circular manufacturing ecosystems that combine production with battery recycling.

“Consumer goods like apparel and electronics aren’t coming back anytime soon, but essential technologies like computer chips, perhaps the most complex products on earth, have become a priority of national security. We haven’t seen this kind of investment in the future in decades, and some of the newer factories I visited had the buzz of tech startups.”

Perhaps the biggest threat facing American manufacturing isn’t foreign competition, but finding enough workers at home, Payne said. It has been hard for many companies to find new talent and young people who want to learn the trade and keep production going.

“The lack of qualified workers is a common refrain I hear over and over from plant managers, and sometimes I fear the greatest impediment to a resurgence in American manufacturing might not be from abroad but from within,” he said.

Payne’s book celebrates the workers he met over the past decade who were generous with their time and happy to open up to him.

“These are the people who make the stuff that fuels our economy, and in this time of social polarization and increasing automation, they offer a glimmer of hope,” he said.

Payne says “Made in America” is a fine-art book, with the intention to make the kind of pictures that could hang on the wall of a museum.

But it’s important to him that it makes a deeper connection.

“I’m hoping that my work will resonate with people on a kind of patriotic level,” he said. “Because it really is a book about this country and the pride I felt as an American when I would go to each place.”

“Made in America,” published by Abrams Books, is now available for pre-order.