Helmut Newton, Crude distillation unit – tower sections and process pipelines, c 1951–54, gelatin silver photograph, gift of the Shell Company of Australia, 2005.
Helmut Newton was not known as an industrial photographer. Despite this, he was employed by Shell to document the construction of the Geelong Refinery from 1951 to 1956. Many of these photographs explore the principles of ‘new photography’, characterised by clean lines, a sharp focus and dramatic vantage points, and often showing the workers’ relationship to the industrial landscape.