High Tech, Higher Stakes

Production facilities at a pharmaceutical company are anything but simple.

I photograph many types of spaces for the commercial real estate industry, including offices, apartment complexes, retail centers, and warehouses. While these are often expensive facilities to build and maintain, the priciest of them all aren’t luxury apartments, but rather biomedical and lab science spaces.

I have no idea what this gizmo is, but I know it ain’t cheap.

For biomedical workers, clean room suits are their daily outfits.

The large amount of infrastructure and mechanical services necessary to set up a biomedical lab is what drives the rent prices so high for these kinds of spaces. Air filters, electrical backup systems, and heating and cooling systems create the required environmental conditions for chemical testing and patient procedures—and that’s before considering the cutting-edge technology and equipment that will call these spaces home!

The operating room at an outpatient facility requires plenty of space to accommodate all the machines needed for procedures.

Chemical testing must be performed in very clean environments to reduce the risk of contamination.

As a result, photographing labs provides a set of challenges different from apartments or offices. For instance, when shooting in a clean room, I have to sanitize my equipment and wear protective clothing. While other facilities allow me to adjust furniture and blinds to produce the best shot, I have to take care to not disrupt any of the high-tech equipment in a lab shoot.

While the machines themselves are intricate, there’s plenty of space between them to avoid any collisions or accidents.

Behind the scenes lies a network of pipes and wires.

My clients’ facilities are kept to the highest standards of cleanliness in order to maximize their efficiency and provide high-quality results, and I want to portray that accurately in my photography.

This space looks similar to a high school chemistry lab, though I’m sure the technology far outstrips that of my teenage years.