The technology I photograph around Boston

Redfin recently asked what I love about Boston. I answered with the part of the region I see on assignment.

In What Locals Love About Boston, Redfin published this excerpt from my response:

“People hear ‘technology hub’ and assume Boston mostly produces software. But as an industrial photographer, I get to see how much of the region’s innovation is still physical.”

I have spent a lot of time photographing the evidence. At Nia Therapeutics, I photographed an experimental implant that the company is developing for memory loss. On New England dairy farms, I followed the tanks and piping used to turn manure and discarded food into energy and fertilizer.

One phrase in the Redfin quotation deserves some precision. Nia says its implant is designed to sense and stimulate brain activity with the goal of treating memory loss. The device is experimental. “Memory-restoring” describes the intended treatment, not a result that has been established in patients.

The scale of these jobs changes quickly. The neural device sits on a lab bench; a farm digester stretches across a working farm. Either way, I need to understand the process before I know where to put the camera.

That is the part of the work I like. Before I can make a useful photograph, I have to understand what I am looking at and find the people who understand it best.