Industrial photography includes working with writers and designers to create reports and visual presentations, preparing executive and editorial portraits and creating dynamic images for publication purpose. It also involves scientific instrumentation photography and specialized skills for assignments in research. Such techniques have some advertising and commercial photography applications to capture whatever is either very slow or very fast for the human eye to behold.

Industrial photography comprises of the following terms – In mining, the photographs of briquette plants, power plants, headframes and mines. In steelworks, the photographs are of converters, Cowper stoves and blast furnaces.

In case of factories the following photographs have been taken. There are many photographs of the abandoned Aachen slaughterhouse. In case of foundry the photographs have been regarding an empty foundry, the equipment used for pouring molten metal and the removed castings. Prayon is a chemical plant where the photographs of a conveyor, a spherical gas holder and the actual chemical plant have been taken. In case of the refractory clay kilns, there are many photographs regarding the furnaces like the No.1, No.4 and No.5. There are photographs of the outer part of the building of Hastenrather Kalkwerke limeworks.

The screw manufacturing plant ‘Bauer und Schaurte’ was formerly called as ‘Funcke und Hueck’ in Hagen. The photographs related to this plant are of the administration building, boiler house, workshop and bridge across the river Ennepe, workshop entry, workshops at the river Ennepe, the actual workshops and the workshop at the river Volme. In case of the impregnation plant, the photos are of the stake cars, impregnation chamber, boiler and the building of the plant. The Imperia Motorcar factory has photos like the test track, sawtooth roof and a panoramic view of the plant.

Industrial photography may be related to several fields. It may include some stills like while pouring iron, the inside of a spaceship, any x-ray analysis, any construction site, piping industry, packaging boxes, assembly line of an automotive industry, fabrication sites, sheet metal industry etc.

Industrial photography is of immense importance as it provides an insight to the progress of the industry. From the photographs one can visualize how the industry has been progressing from time to time. The conditions of the factory and its workers that existed in the bygone time can be understood. This can then be compared with the existing scenario.

Some of the industrial photography is related to the buildings that exist in the industry. This is very useful for architects and civil engineers. They can understand how the layout for factories was established in the old times. The facades of the administration buildings as well as the workshops were the targets of industrial photography.

Industrial photography is also related to the inside of the buildings in the industry. The dimensions of the factory are generally very huge as compared to the size of the products manufactured. The reason is that the factory has to accommodate huge machinery, lifts, trailers and other equipment that require more height.

Another aspect of industrial photography is that of machines. The shots of the machines taken must be such that most of the details of the machine come in the shot. The photographer has to adjust the camera in such a way that maximum parts of the machine are seen in the photograph.

Some photographs of industrial photography are concerning the actual process being carried out. This may be of a welder making a specific weld or of a machinist active on a CNC machine. This is the difficult part of industrial photography as the photographer must catch the live action precisely.