An Introduction to The Surveyor Chronicles – Context
An Introduction to The Surveyor Chronicles Context
I decided to write this post as an introduction to my latest series ‘The Surveyor Chronicles’. I’ve also started thinking of writing about my previous works one by one. I want to give more depth to each concept, try to expand my understanding of them myself, and help the viewer understand what I had in mind or inside my heart when making them. But anyway, I’ll stick to ‘The Surveyor Chronicles’ for this occasion.
The Surveyor Chronicles - I
First, I would like to give some background information and context to this series, as it’s one I captured continuously during almost half a year and will end up being separated into many ‘chapter-like’ releases. The first reason for that is I ended up with quite a big collection of photographs, as I was capturing photographs for it every day, apart from my days off which were few and far between. The whole series was taken over a period of over 5 months, during which I worked 8 shifts, most of them lasting 17 days each, with 4 days off after. And repeat. On paper, I worked a total of 1,614 hours, equivalent of 10 months of 40-hour weeks.
The second reason is that I don’t feel I can really compress the series into anything smaller, at least for now. I was thinking, though, that ultimately, it will end up having to be compressed and compiled once I finish all the individual releases.
I should mention that this was all captured by a Ricoh GR III, and I would not have been able to do it without it. The quality of the photographs despite its minuscule size makes all the difference. Being in the field day in, day out, under all conditions – great or horrible – nothing else could have gotten the job done. On the worst days, my GR had to spend the day inside a Ziploc bag. But on any day, its resting spot alternated between my safety vest’s front pocket or a small shoulder pouch, where I had immediate access to it at all times. Spoiler alert: it survived the whole season, through days of rain and sunshine – in marsh, bushland, mountains, and farmland.
To capture this series, I carried my camera every day as I worked in Cathodic Protection as a junior corrosion technician. Basically, my job was to walk along buried pipelines in the middle of nowhere and check for the potential on the ground above them, and also for the pipeline’s depth. The purpose of this job was to check for compliance with government regulations regarding the depth of the buried pipe, as well as the potential that is charged to prevent, or rather slow down, the pipeline from corroding over time. This meant walking through all kinds of terrain and during all weather conditions to check and record that information.
The Surveyor Chronicles - 𝚅̶
The only time we were asked to stop was when thunder was close enough to where we were. And even then, it’s not easy to get back to the truck during a thunderstorm after receiving a tornado warning, when your crew lead only asks you to stop once the storm is already upon you. Of course, the other crew member and I ended up soaking wet as the rain, hail and thunder fell upon us while we tried running back to the truck. I say ‘try running’ because to make matters worse, he was asthmatic, so he gave up on running the kilometer or so we needed to get back halfway through. Obviously, I didn’t want to leave him on his own, so we both suffered the same fate. But we survived to live (work) another day.
Other than that, we had to walk until the pipeline ended. Unless there was no ‘safe’ way to get there. Such as marshland, rivers, lakes, mountain cliffs, bushland too thick to cross (e.g. spiky bush with no space to cross in between, or trees too close together that make it almost impossible to get through), etc. Although we had to search for a way through on most occasions. The daily quota was explained to be 6 or 7 km per day, but it ended up being closer to 9 km and that was strictly surveyed territory only. The real walked distances could end up being 13 km or more, depending on the terrain and how much we had to end up walking around the pipe to reach its end. For example, crossing a swamp or going around a mama bear with cubs occasionally required quite the detours.
Anyway, we were doing 12-hour days. Some days ended up being shorter, and only a handful ended up being longer (no thanks to our project manager who wanted us to accept those kinds of days without compensation and to expect more). How tiring each shift was depended more on the terrain and conditions rather than on how many hours we worked each day. I was unlucky (or for content purposes, lucky) to end up in a crew that managed to get the scopes with the worst (but most interesting) terrain most of the time. If not for that, I also probably would not have been able to find enough beauty or mystery during those days to make this series. It was surely an adventure.
But that’s all for now. I still have to talk about my approach to the series regarding what I wanted to accomplish before taking the photographs, my inspirations for the series and while taking the photographs, my impressions during its making – and any changes in approach, my feelings throughout the adventure and its reflection on the work, and any other notion I think I should make known.
You can take a look at the releases of The Surveyor Chronicles below.
June 19, 2024 @ 8:23 am
Están preciosas las fotos! 🔥
June 19, 2024 @ 9:03 am
Graciaaaas 🤗