Owning a custom portrait studio certainly takes me places I never imagined…sometimes that’s into the belly of industry that keeps that east coast running in cement production. Lehigh Cement contracted my portrait services to mark a milestone in their plant that keeps the whole east coast churning in concrete production. The plant closes annually for a month to do maintenance and this year that closing marked a massive 6.2 million dollar renovation job on their clinker cooler. A clinker cooler cools clinkers, one of the products used to make cement. Clinkers, which are like little rocks of lava, enter the cooler at 2,450 degrees. They are cooled to about 700 degrees in this giant cooler. There’s a video below of it in operation.
So it’s not often I don a hard hat and moch covers for my shoes to make them into steel toed boots, but I loved the challenge. One of the plant managers, Chad, who has been in the throws of getting this renovation completed on time said, “we should have had a professional photographer come out and take pictures before we started her back up.” This was the day before the cooler was to go back into production. Enter Jennifer DiDio Photography! Fortunately we were able to clear our morning schedule for this last minute trip to the clinker cooler. I’ve worked several commercial jobs like this in the last few months and am intrigued by the challenges to create the art I am being hired for! Love it! These images will be adorning the walls at Lehigh very soon! I’ve also been encouraged to enter a few in print competitions by a fellow professional who has won Photographer of the Year several times in his state! We shall see!
The guys at Lehigh rock! Super friendly and helpful bunch who didn’t mind Sara and I invading their territory for a bit! Love the Life magazine feel of them doing their thing in the clinker cooler!
