Hand-made Construction – Bangalore, India

I was fascinated by these workers manually constructing this building. The only accommodation of semi-modern technology was a small concrete mixer running on the other side. The person here is passing a bowl of concrete in a slow and laborious process. I wondered how large this building would ultimately become.

Perhaps it’s the concrete and cinder block construction that biases me to think this is a commercial structure, or maybe an apartment building. I’m sure labor rates are low and this sort of hand-made construction makes economic sense in India. In the United States, there’s more automation, of course, though still a surprising amount of manual effort. In Japan, by contrast, many more structures are built of entire systems, many of which are pre-constructed in factories.

Beyond the fascination with construction techniques, however, I like the framing and energy of this street photograph shot with the Canon G7X Mark II. The passing of the bowl gives the image energy, but I also like how the possible supervisor is dead center in the V of wooden supports.