Vouwmachine in de drukkerij 1921

Here's this photo, 'Vouwmachine in de drukkerij,' by T. Kaneo, that captures a scene, probably a factory. What gets me is the intense detail—the gears and levers look like they are working together in harmony. I wonder if Kaneo was a fan of machinery, because the human form seems secondary in the composition. Look at the worker in the background tending to the machine – what was he thinking as he folded the paper, day after day? As an artist, you’re always making decisions about what to include and what to leave out. I feel like Kaneo was celebrating industry itself. What could that mean? Maybe he was trying to draw attention to progress, or simply capturing a moment in time. But I suppose that every artist does this: they’re always in conversation with each other, with the moment, with what they think art should be. And that conversation never really ends, does it?