Hot n' nasty.

That would be how I would describe the photo shoot yesterday at the rubber mill. One thing that is a nice benefit of my job is that I'm exposed to plenty of different industries and processes that you don't normally just run across. Rubber manufacturing for example. You can't stay clean in that environment. Natural rubber is kind of taupe in color. A product called carbon black is added to it to give it the characteristic black color we're used to seeing. I saw how raw materials are mixed and processed to yield products with different properties. I also saw how compounds were formulated and how they are tested in the lab. Very interesting learning experience.

On the photography side of things, a lot of powerful lighting was needed to light up machinery up to 3 stories tall. From the preliminary samples I looked at, we've got some good shots. That's a relief. It was hard work getting those.