I've been photographing Bodmin Moor in Cornwall this past week during a rare prolonged sunny spell. It's been many years since I last visited the region and this time, being my first visit as a photographer, I saw it in a completely different light (quite literally given the nice weather!)
I had intended photographing the granite stacks of the Cheesewring at Minions, which I did quite comprehensively, but it was the many old abandoned engine houses from the mining in the 19th century that captured my imagination. Stood on the top of Cheesewring I realised how many engine houses stand abandoned all over the moor.
I wished for a time machine to take me back to the 19th century to view the landscape being worked. Just imagine the photographs I could take with all those chimneys billowing their smoke from the great steam beam engines working within. I suspect the reality of the hard life the miners and their families lived was quite different to my silly romantic ideas, especially in view of how many times the local mining companies went bust and mines were closed, reopened and closed again all in a few short years. I wonder if in a 120 years or so our descendants will look back at at our troubled times at the start of the 21st century in the same romantic way?
Despite their World Heritage Site status, many of the old engine houses are crumbling, some quite rapidly according to a local I spoke to. With this in mind I will be paying many more visits to the Cornish mines over the coming months in an effort to build up a collection of images before further decay occurs.
I want to post some images, especially as I shot some black and white film, my first in quite a long time, but shooting on film means these will have to wait for processing and scanning. Watch this space as they say.
I had intended photographing the granite stacks of the Cheesewring at Minions, which I did quite comprehensively, but it was the many old abandoned engine houses from the mining in the 19th century that captured my imagination. Stood on the top of Cheesewring I realised how many engine houses stand abandoned all over the moor.
I wished for a time machine to take me back to the 19th century to view the landscape being worked. Just imagine the photographs I could take with all those chimneys billowing their smoke from the great steam beam engines working within. I suspect the reality of the hard life the miners and their families lived was quite different to my silly romantic ideas, especially in view of how many times the local mining companies went bust and mines were closed, reopened and closed again all in a few short years. I wonder if in a 120 years or so our descendants will look back at at our troubled times at the start of the 21st century in the same romantic way?
Despite their World Heritage Site status, many of the old engine houses are crumbling, some quite rapidly according to a local I spoke to. With this in mind I will be paying many more visits to the Cornish mines over the coming months in an effort to build up a collection of images before further decay occurs.
I want to post some images, especially as I shot some black and white film, my first in quite a long time, but shooting on film means these will have to wait for processing and scanning. Watch this space as they say.
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