Jet Lowe
John T. "Jet" Lowe is an American photographer. He is one of the photographers employed by the U.S. National Park Service on the Historic American Buildings Survey and Historic American Engineering Record projects, and was the supervisor of engineering photography for HAER until his retirement in July 2013. His book, Industrial Eye: Photographs by Jet Lowe from the Historic American Engineering Record was published in 1986 by the Preservation Press.Life
Lowe uses large format images to record significant and often threatened American industrial sites for the National Park Service's HAER program. These images along with an extensive architectural history and measured drawings constitutes a permanent record of the industrial sites he documents. HAER projects are housed at the Library of Congress, and many of the records are available on-line from the library's website.
Lowe's industrial photographs make up a significant portion of the HAER images collected since the founding of HAER in 1969. The National Park Service, the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Library of Congress reached an agreement to document historic sites and structures related to engineering and industry. This agreement was later ratified by four other engineering societies: the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers.
Lowe's images include a 2001 remake of the famous Charles Sheeler 1927 image of crossing conveyors taken at the Ford River Rouge Steel Complex.
He received the Society for Industrial Archaeology's highest honor, the General Tools Award.Gallery
