Metaaldraaibank in de Ward End Works, de fabriek van de Wolseley Motor Company in Birmingham 1932

F.R. Logan made this photograph of a lathe at the Wolseley Motor Company in Birmingham. There's a real tactile quality, even in the grainy monochrome image, and you can imagine the noises of the factory floor, the smell of oil, and the scrape of metal on metal. What strikes me is the tension between the precision of the engineering and the gritty reality of the factory. Look at the pile of metal swarf, those shavings that are the waste product of all this effort, like peelings or detritus. The human element is present but anonymous: a hand reaching into the frame, controlling the machine. It puts me in mind of the artist Charles Sheeler and his images of the Ford factory at River Rouge. Both explore the idea of the machine as a tool and symbol of progress, but here, there's a stronger sense of the human involvement in the process, the meeting of body and machine. It's a picture of industry, but it's also a portrait of labor.