About the Project

These photographs are just a small sample of the work included in BLUE: America at Work, a collection of black and white images that illustrate the many anonymous faces that make the products we rely on. These emotive scenes are captured at scores of large facilities and small businesses from around the USA in a diverse set of industries from sugar to shampoo – and help show that the products made by American workers help drive the American economy.

In BLUE, we venture behind the scenes of industrial assembly lines and production plants as photographer Ian Wagreich takes us on an intimate journey that shows how Made in America has the same powerful meaning it did during the industrial heyday of decades past.

Many years in the making and first seen in 2012, BLUE is an ongoing project, produced on medium format film and hand printed in the darkroom on museum grade fine art silver gelatin paper, currently only in 20x24 format.

The work loosely focuses on those in traditional heavy industry, workers who create organic products as well as those in high-tech manufacturing.

About the Photographer

Ian Wagreich has most recently been photographing business leaders and illustrating corporate headlines as a commercial photographer for the nation’s largest federation of businesses for more than a dozen years. Previously a photojournalist covering Washington, DC's, political racetrack, he has been looking through the lens and snapping away at life's curiosities since his single digits.

BLUE: America at Work is the perfect storm of his love for the classic larger photographic formats reminiscent of the look captured by early 20th Century photographers, and his curiosity for what makes America tick.