Bernd and Hilla Becher, German photographers, documented blast furnace plants in Alabama as part of their broader project photographing industrial structures. They created typologies, which are series of photographs of similar structures, often displayed in grids, to highlight their shared features and structural principles. Their work in Alabama includes photographs of blast furnaces in Ensley, Gadsden, Fairfield, and other locations. This photograph is somewhat atypical in not being in grid form, yet at the same time captures the gridded wasteland of abandoned cars in the shadow of an abandoned line of railroad cars in the shadow of an abandoned blast furnace.
