Iron and Steel

Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India

People think that any business involving metal works on a large, international scale, but the world is full of small metal enterprises. S&K Iron and Steel is one of them. It's a metal yard I found in 2018 in Srinagar, Kashmir, India. I spent a week at this family metal yard, which started out selling small metal scraps on a micro-scale. Today, the enterprise has evolved into a solid business. Local merchants and builders come to the yard to find the materials and parts for their projects, and the workers cut and weld the materials on hand to produce the parts that are needed. An entire extended family and a small group of hired workers run the operation. Even the patriarch presides over a stock room that houses a loosely-sorted inventory that must go back decades.

  • 2018

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