Work images

An excavator operator is dwarfed by his machine as he rigs the stick and bucket to be loaded onto a trailer for transport. In 2013, Google demolished a building at their Mountain View, CA campus, and this equipment was involved in the process.

"Poles, dig in!" is the command, as leverage amplifies the amount of resistance required to keep the ladder from falling. Due in large part to San Francisco, CA's abundance of overhead electrical infrastructure, the SF Fire Department continues to maintain and use wooden ground ladders. During this March, 2013 training exercise, two SFFD companies performed highly-choreographed maneuvers in tandem to raise and extend the 30-foot-long, 350-lb extension ladder, and then to lower it to the ground again.

Ground handlers bide their time as they wait to push back a JetBlue Embraer E190, named "Bluetopia", prior to a flight out of Boston's Logan Airport.

A mechanic with the US Army Aeroflightdynamics Directorate (AFDD) works on the rotor control system of a Sikorsky UH-60 "Black Hawk" helicopter. The AFDD used this and other helicopters to carry out research and development of autonomously-controlled helicopters. Another Black Hawk, based out of the same hangar at the NASA Ames Research Center, had been equipped to fly autonomously.

A mechanic works to replace a metal hydraulic pipe on the stick of an excavator. In 2013, Google demolished a building at their Mountain View, CA campus, and this equipment was involved in the process.

Two cleaners help to maintain Apple's spotless brand image by wiping away dirt and debris from a pair of advertising displays in the New York City metro system.

A window cleaner reaches with a squeegee to dry the just-washed surface of Apple's all-glass facade at their downtown Palo Alto, CA storefront. In addition to cleaning the facade, the cleaners also pressure-washed the sidewalk in front of the store.

A container handler reaches across to pick a 53' trailer from a flatbed train car at a Union Pacific freight terminal in Sparks, NV.

Workers lift a new cellular antenna over the edge of a building in June, 2016 as they work together to install the antenna in the midtown area of Manhattan, NY.

Mark stares up towards the treetops as his friend Matt, a professional arborist, continues a nearly-hour-long climb of a Redwood tree that was later found to stand 200 feet tall. Mark had commissioned Matt to fell this particular tree, without damaging any of the surrounding trees, in order to facilitate a road re-routing project on land in California's Santa Cruz mountain range. Matt had plans to use the lumber from the tree to construct a deck for a house overlooking the site.

An operator monitors a feed conveyor for pieces of plastic as a mobile screening system separates the incoming mixture into different particle-size grades of aggregate. During a 2013 building demolition project at Google's Mountain View campus, the screen and other machinery were used to help recycle the materials that had been part of the building and its foundation.

Ashland, VA-based tuner Matt Shue, owner of SHUEtuned, attaches an O2 sensor to a Mazda Miata racecar during a July, 2014 tuning session.

Nick (left) hands a tire iron to his brother Alan (right) during the 2015 running of the 25 Hours of Thunderhill endurance race, in Willows, CA. Alan runs the AIM Tires shop that is permanently situated at the racetrack, and Nick helps out during bigger events. Just watching how they work together, you can tell they've been at this for ages.

I had asked Alan about times in motorsports when he had felt concerned, and his responses seemed to focus on situations that were out of his control — a broken machine one year, a flood the next… When it came to challenges that he could address directly, they didn't seem to merit concern so much as, just, awareness. When he mentioned them, he simply told me "you gotta watch out."

The driver of a double-decker car transport operates a hydraulic ramp prior to rolling cars off the top level of the transport. This and another truck, operated by Quality Car Shippers, LLC, had stopped on Ellis Street in San Francisco, CA to deliver cars to an Enterprise Rent-A-Car location on that street.

A firefighter clears water out of a hose during the cleanup process after the San Jose Fire Department responded to a late 2015 house fire on Sierra Avenue in San Jose, CA. The house had been on the market and vacant for months, at the time.

An SFPD police officer runs out police tape after a shooting at a laundromat at 24th Street and Hampshire Street in San Francisco, CA. Bystanders reported hearing an altercation, followed by the sound of gunshots. SFPD detectives found drips of fresh blood on the sidewalk, but all involved parties had left the scene before the police arrived.

A San Jose, CA firefighter acts as a spotter as SJFD ladder truck 30 reverses down Sierra Avenue to clear the scene of a residential fire. In the waning hours before New Year's Eve, 2015, SJFD had responded to a fire in a long-vacant house on that street. Once the fire was under control, the ladder truck departed as a few engines remained to clean up the scene and meet with utility companies.

A Mountain View police officer holds a section police tape out of the way as a Santa Clara County ambulance with lights and sirens leaves the scene of a stabbing in Mountain View, CA. The victim had been stabbed by an attacker known to them, and was transported to a nearby hospital. Emergency services had restricted all access to Mountain View's Phyllis Avenue, near El Camino Real, as they dealt with the situation.

Sam, an ironworker with Glazier Iron Works, attaches a triangular reinforcement gusset to a steel frame prior to the installation of a sculpture into the frame. The team hoisted and installed a ~15-foot-tall, stainless steel-clad Android Bugdroid sculpture above the entryway of a building at Google's Mountain View, CA campus in January, 2013.

A mechanic uses a torch to trim the newly-installed tooth on an excavator bucket to match the others. In 2013, Google demolished a building at their Mountain View campus, and this equipment was involved in the process.

A cook at Yamo, a Burmese restaurant in San Francisco, CA, braces as she catches hot oil ablaze while cooking noodles in a wok. She prepared noodles one serving at a time, and would catch the oil on fire each time, just before sliding the noodles from the wok into a bowl for serving.