Lessart Viaduct on the Rance River

In April 1858 the director of the École des Ponts et Chaussées, the French civil-engineering school, observed that photography “is by now employed on many work sites, not only to record the details but even to see the state of progress of the construction.” Lafon mastered this type of industrial imagery for which he was awarded a medal at the 1874 exhibition of the Société Française de Photographie. Striking in its symmetry and precision, this photograph is from a series documenting the construction of a railway line from Dol to Lamballe in Brittany. The image offers a striking tableau of modern labor. A row of engineers and officials takes center stage within the soaring structure, while behind them unskilled laborers wave at the camera and peek out from between iron beams.