Worker, clean room, Toshiba, Kawasaki City, Japan Possibly 1989 - 2006

This is a photograph by Lewis Baltz, called "Worker, clean room, Toshiba, Kawasaki City, Japan". Baltz’s photography can feel, well, sterile, clinical, and totally mesmerizing. He's got this fascination with repetition, like the grid of lights on the ceiling. It's a landscape of technology and labor, but the human presence is almost ghostly, a figure swallowed by the environment. Look at the worker's uniform, that pale blue. It's like they're camouflaged, part of the machinery. There’s a strange, quiet beauty in this image. Think about the way the light bounces off those surfaces, how it flattens everything out. The texture is almost nonexistent, smooth and cold, like a sci-fi movie set. It is reminiscent of the stark industrial landscapes documented by the Bechers, but with a much cooler tone. It captures a very specific moment, but it feels timeless, in a way.