Growing up in Northern England amid the spectre of abandoned factories and buildings from its industrial past, I’ve long been captivated by places where machines still sound and the relentless drum of heavy industry continues. This photographic series emerged from years exploring Ostrava, a city in eastern Czechia, where I sought to document the persistent energy of such places - and to wrestle with the hidden costs they bear.
Once celebrated as the driving force of modernity, these industrial centres have become distant, grimy outposts. In the ‘post-industrial’ West, they’ve all but vanished, outsourced to remote corners of the globe, hidden from sight, like exiled deities we claim to have forsaken. Globalisation has veiled them in a shroud of indifference, masking the human effort and environmental strain that sustain our modern lives.
Ostrava defies this erasure with raw, unapologetic force. Its vast steel plant stretches across 10 square kilometres, a labyrinth of towering stacks and glowing forges that never sleep. For over two hundred years, it has forged the city’s identity. Here, machine culture endures - dictating the rhythm of life. The people tied to this pulse carry a tough, unyielding spirit, despite their strength being tempered by the heavy air.
This work blends documentary photography, portraiture, and stark landscapes to cut away that veil, exposing both the awe-inspiring scale and the heavy burden of this machine-driven realm. Shaped by conversations with Ostrava’s inhabitants, I balanced observation with intervention, paying tribute to their endurance, whilst acknowledging the gap between their reality and mine as an outsider. The resulting images merge documentary detail with brooding atmospheric texture - rekindling a child’s curiosity about worlds Where Machines Rule and revealing a reality as essential today as it was in the past - hidden, enduring, and impossible to ignore.
Many thanks to my brother, Dominic, who tirelessly helped me capture these images with great patience and curiosity.
Growing up in Northern England amid the spectre of abandoned factories and buildings from its industrial past, I’ve long been captivated by places where machines still sound and the relentless drum of heavy industry continues. This photographic series emerged from years exploring Ostrava, a city in eastern Czechia, where I sought to document the persistent energy of such places - and to wrestle with the hidden costs they bear.
Once celebrated as the driving force of modernity, these industrial centres have become distant, grimy outposts. In the ‘post-industrial’ West, they’ve all but vanished, outsourced to remote corners of the globe, hidden from sight, like exiled deities we claim to have forsaken. Globalisation has veiled them in a shroud of indifference, masking the human effort and environmental strain that sustain our modern lives.
Ostrava defies this erasure with raw, unapologetic force. Its vast steel plant stretches across 10 square kilometres, a labyrinth of towering stacks and glowing forges that never sleep. For over two hundred years, it has forged the city’s identity. Here, machine culture endures - dictating the rhythm of life. The people tied to this pulse carry a tough, unyielding spirit, despite their strength being tempered by the heavy air.
This work blends documentary photography, portraiture, and stark landscapes to cut away that veil, exposing both the awe-inspiring scale and the heavy burden of this machine-driven realm. Shaped by conversations with Ostrava’s inhabitants, I balanced observation with intervention, paying tribute to their endurance, whilst acknowledging the gap between their reality and mine as an outsider. The resulting images merge documentary detail with brooding atmospheric texture - rekindling a child’s curiosity about worlds Where Machines Rule and revealing a reality as essential today as it was in the past - hidden, enduring, and impossible to ignore.
Many thanks to my brother, Dominic, who tirelessly helped me capture these images with great patience and curiosity.
PHOTOGRAPHIC WORKS
me
> Where Machines Rule
PHOTOGRAPHIC WORKS
me
> Where Machines Rule
PHOTOGRAPHIC WORKS
me
PHOTOGRAPHIC WORKS
me
> Where Machines Rule