Roy Emerson Stryker was a brilliant documentary photographer. He was also a brilliant project leader and sought out gifted photographers who had an "insatiable curiosity, the kind that can get to the core of an assignment, the kind that can comprehend what a truck driver, or a farmer, or a driller or a housewife thinks and feels and translate those thoughts and feelings into pictures that can be similarly comprehended by anyone."
The Jones and Laughlin Photographic Project, under the direction of Roy Emerson Stryker, employed several noted photographers, including Todd Webb, Arthur Siegel, Russell Lee, Ivan Massar, and Clyde Hare. The Steel exhibit consists of photographs that were used by the company's public relations department in order to illustrate the processes involved in the transportation of raw materials and the production of steel.
Photographer Sue Wrbican, who worked in a steel mill in the late 1970’s, will also be exhibiting her contemporary photographs. Sue Wrbican is one of the speakers at the Photography: The Document Symposium.
The Steel and Sue Wrbican exhibit is located in the Photographic Archives Gallery, Ekstrom Library, Lower Level. This exhibit is being held in conjunction with the Photo Biennial and will be on view until January 13th.
Photo: Courtesy of UofL, Ekstrom Library, Special Collections, Hot rolling steel at the Jones and Laughlin Steel Company in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, ca. 1955.
