Van Norman No. 12 Duplex Milling Machine

In my series Custom Machinery, I photographed some of the last workers and machines of their kind. Though there will always be certain kinds of work that become obsolete, it's important to stop and think about what we destroy in the name of progress, to make informed decisions about the price we pay. Matthew Crawford, in Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work, describes leaving behind a series of stultifying academic jobs and turning to a career as a motorcycle mechanic, where he discovers the "intensely absorbing nature" of manual labor. He appreciates "losing himself in work that is genuinely useful and has a certain integrity to it." As society devalues such manual trades, Crawford argues, we risk losing a bit of our soul. It's that bit of soul I tried to capture in Custom Machinery. In this era of cubicles and knowledge workers and information technology, I want these images to remind us of the beauty of machines and tools and the hands that use them.