A Portrait of the American Worker:Red, white and blue-collar

A Portrait of the American Worker:Red, white and blue-collar

Amazing! From heavy industry like steel milling, to more delicate crafts like book-binding and brewing, these figures all have in common that they produce something tangible with their own hard work

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Standing proud, surrounded by the tools of their trade, the din of machinery, and, for a few, the star-spangled banner, these are the laborers who keep America strong by the sweat of their brows.
These touching photographs show the quiet dignity of blue-collar workers across the nation.
From heavy industry like steel milling, to more delicate crafts like book-binding and brewing, these figures all have in common that they produce something tangible with their own hard work.
The employees were captured in their place of work by photographer Carl Corey, who is part way through a three-year project to document the country’s industries through everyday workers.
The project, entitled BLUE – A Portrait of the American Worker, began in 2012, and is expected to be completed by May 2016, with hundreds more subjects.
Corey, who has started a Kickstarter crowdsourcing page to fund the latter stages months of the project, said his aim is to: ‘honestly tell the story through pictures of the contemporary American Working Class’.
After researching the companies he was interested in, Corey visits the workplaces and meets some of the workers, who he asks to photograph at a later date.
Other than setting up a flashy, Corey said he does nothing to pose the workers, who are in their everyday environment.
Speaking to DailyMail.com, Corey said: ‘ I am drawn to these people because i truly believe they represent America and the “American Ideal”.
‘I wish to show them my respect, to share that respect and my gratitude for their hard work with others in the hopes that in some small way people take notice and act positively via their own creations and actions.’

In the age of computers, it is easy to forget that some jobs in America still require a human worker to complete the task. All of these American’s enbody the spirt of America that many thought had been lost. This article proves the sprit of america is still alive and well.

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