photo mag

51
OTIS STEEL MILL 1930
CLEVELAND
People wondered if Margaret Bourke-White and her delicate camera
could stand up to the intense heat, hazard, and generally dirty and gritty
conditions inside a steel mill.
Black and white film at the time was sensitive to blue light, not the red
and orange lights that came from hot steel. All of her photos would
come out black but she solved the problem by bringing along a new style
of magnesium flare which produced white light. She had an assistant hold
them to light her scenes. This resulted in some of the best steel factory
photographs of that era and earned national attention.