Allyson says:
I am captivated by this quiet world of shadows, dim light, unfamiliar machinery, and discarded equipment. It is a landscape of the mystical and the mysterious. These silos become a poetic world where blowers, compressors and pneumatic conveyors take on a presence and personality of their own.
I explore the vast, interior spaces of 135’ high working silos at a Northern California cement storage and distribution terminal. My images mark the first time since its construction in 1925 that these spaces have been photographed. They reveal a world inaccessible to the public and celebrate the uncommon beauty of the architecture and machinery of an industry that has been an essential building block for society since antiquity.
Given unprecedented access, I have spent the past two years photographing this plant, with almost exclusive attention given to the interior spaces. Paying homage to inanimate machines in poorly lit silos may seem odd, but the equipment and the cement distributed are the product of human ingenuity and labor; and I view these machines with a sense of reverence which I capture in my work.
Artistic license for presenting and sequencing my work was retained by the publisher.