Bottling

Medium: Giclée print from digital camera

Dimensions: 18″x12″ print in 25 6/16″ x 19 6/16″ frame

Date: July, 2020

About the Artwork:

This is the start of the bottling line. Boxes of empty bottles are taken from a pallet, opened, and the bottles are loaded onto the start of the line. Lionel is reaching for a box and the bottles inside will start their journey. Mina helps to ensure the correct flow of bottles into the machinery, and puts the emptied boxes onto a shelf for the filled bottles to be put back into further down the bottling line. The flow is elegant and simple, but there is a lot of manual work to do for the millions of bottles that go through this line each year.

This is an active portrait – we see the people working to keep the line moving along. This almost looks like two images joined together, with the strong vertical line created by the box and the protective screen. And it feels intimate, with Lionel’s hand reaching out towards us.