I don’t want to turn this into a blog largely about my own work but it is probably a good place to kick off the blog. I guess what I am doing at the moment would fall more into the ‘beautifully mundane’ category than the downright ‘positive’.
A bit of background for you…
The Forest of Dean has a rich heritage of coal mining dating back hundreds of years and it really boomed during the industrial revolution. However, after the Second World War, mining in the area was no longer economical and one by one they began to close. In 1965 the last of the major gales was forced to close and now only a few collieries remain.
Obviously this has all had a major effect on the landscape, but gradually the land is beginning to recover and cover over the traces of what was once there. Today, there is fortunately (for me) still plenty of evidence and this is what I am photographing. I am making quite mundane (but hopefully beautiful) pictures that celebrate the landscape whilst also holding some subtle reference to what was once there. My aim is that I will not have to explicitly reference what the spectator is looking at but that they will gradually build up an idea as they look through the entire work. It is a work very much in progress.
