Hard hats are a definitive feature of building sites. The final word in building site attire. In the time I have been documenting this development, it never occurred to me that the hardhat was necessarily something that required any further consideration being nothing more than a safety feature, mandated by law & required when one a working site.
This is one of those moments when I have to thank the photograph for allowing me to see something that is glaringly obviously worth a second look.
This photograph is cool and has become one of my most profound. On first glance it seems to just be a pleasant visual one liner. Functional perhaps. The unattended hat is mimicking the actions of the one worn by the construction worker. The composition is layered and geometrically balanced. The tones flow nicely from Highlights to the shadows describing all the elements of a a High dynamic range without actually having to push the sensor technology. In other words "good light". Not quiite a throwaway but also not a lead image by any stretch...
Or is it?
The Hard Hat - A Brief History
The Hard hat is a type of helmet worn mostly on construction sites to protect the head from falling objects during a build. These might include debris, glass, scaffolding, tool boxes, bricks... Grand Pianos...Obviously Im joking... Lunch boxes were not allowed up on the scaffoding.
One thing that did surprise me was that hardhats also protect from electric shock. Not sure what the circumstances would have to be to have a hard hat protect you from electric shock...very specific ones I imagine...
The hat has a suspension band inside helps to create a space between the shell and the skull. Usually adjustable so they can fit nice and snuggly on any shape of nogin. The space creates a buffer so during an impact the force is not transfered directly to the head. Some even have a midline reinforcement ridge for added resistance. Todays Hardhats are really very efficient at protecting our most valuable assets.
Back in the day workers used ordinary hats which they would apply pitch tar and set them in the sun to cure till they set hard.
These were usually used by dock workers who were in constant danger of objects dropped from the decks of ships.
This is where things get interesting.
The issues of the hardhat becomes the subject of Professor Peter Druckers writings where he credits a writer Franz Kafka with the developing the first civilian hardhat, while he was employe at the Workers Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia 1912...
So this saftey feature that is now the law was originally not even considered necesary at all. It was only when workers started claiming on insurance for all these building site inguries and deaths that the insurance companies themselves decided to solve this issue by inventing a helmet that would protect workers. A very sinical win win.
Paradoxically it was the insurance compnies greed and putting profits before people that actually ended up working in favour of the workers safety the resulkt was the birth of the hard hat. Tghe helmert that saved the lnsurance companies millions in compensation and many a head on construction sites across the land... to this day.
*TBC...