Brian Griffin

British Photographer, Brian Griffin has worked on a number of series that involve photographing the labour worker. In his series St. Pancras he was commissioned by London and Continental railways to produce a body of work featuring approximately 165 subjects that all have involvement with the building of the St.Pancras rail station.



St. Pancras

The portraits each show the person within their working environment, suggesting the title of their job by their clothing, belongings and sometimes surroundings. Griffin also juxtaposes his images, placing the workers within surroundings that symbolise religious and heroic figures.

Griffin also worked extensively for Rosehaugh Stanhope, photographing the construction of Broadgate in the city of London, after which he was commissioned to photograph a subject of his choice that was also involved in the construction. He chose to photograph the labour workers that helped in the building of Broadgate, as at the time Griffin was still mourning the loss of his father who died due to industrial pollution. This attachment that Griffin had to the workers led him to photographing them in a very symbollic composition, not unlike "a Knight lying in state in some cathedral."

Workers

These photographs hold many connotations of death and sacrifice by the use of the composition, and purposely making the workers lay down with their eyes closed. This positioning was often used in many traditional historical works such as Jacques-Louis David's painting named The Death of Marat, and also in photography such as Henry Peach Robinson's Fading Away; however, the historical element is challenged as Griffin chooses to photograph industrialism and uses objects in his images that connote an urban living. 

The use of the gun in the above picture has many connotations, most notably death, and the juxtaposition that Griffin uses with the composition and pose of the model challenges the idea of the "Knight laying in state in some cathedral."