The construction industry magazine Engineering News-Record (widely known as ENR) has announced the winning images from its 2023 “Year In Construction” photo contest. We are delighted to announce that the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission's (SFPUC) Head Photographer Robin Scheswohl was honored with two winning submissions this year.

A panel of judges, which included ENR editors, photographers, and industry professionals combed through nearly 1,200 submitted images to pick 50 winners, “that skillfully capture the action of construction jobsites and the human spirit that goes into creating the built environment”, according to Scott Blair, ENR’s Editor-in-Chief.

Scheswohl captured this striking image from the construction of the Biosolids Digester Facilities at the Southeast Wastewater Treatment Plant on June 7th, 2023. She wanted to document the first core wall pour for Digester No 5. “I wanted the focus to be more on the individual workers without losing the enormity of the digester wall,” she noted in her submission. 

According to the ENR post accompanying the winning photos, ENR senior art director Scott Hilling noted that he was struck by “a real visceral sense of mood and emotion conveyed through many of the photos this year. It was palpable. Intense lighting, dramatic shadows and an elevated sense of composition were the keys to achieving this.”

Scheswohl's second winning image included dramatic shadows and light play as she documented work on the Transmission Lines 7/8 Upgrades Project in the Central Valley on August 15th, 2023.

Crews were aloft in the towers while stabilizing and raising them by 9 feet. “I wanted a backlit photo of the crew on the tower and to create a sunburst effect through the workers,” she said in her submission. "The moment lasted just long enough to capture this image."