naggobot
Mines of Peakka Boitten
Before Wealth replaced the industrial economy, the city of Helgor sold the Vaehkalahti to the Peakka Boitten with "one copper coin for exploitation and excavation of low value minerals". Price set for the area was formal because the city officials deemed the operation to be "for general em-betterment of the city and it's people". It was estimated that the mine would require at least twenty full time employees for the duration of it's operation. An economical impact not to be sneered at. Vaehkalahti on the other hand was a swampy wasteland inhabited only by some useless birds and strange long dead stone creatures containing the low value minerals.
Three weeks after the deed was signed the immigrant workers arrived to the mine site. A story is told that the workers were amazed by the beauty of the site. The stone creatures had glittered ruby red and obsidian black in the sunset while surrounded by the screeching of thousands of birds nesting on the site.Story continues to tell that initially the workers had refused to start work on the site due to the beauty that they claimed to be a gift from the gods.
After three days without food or water the workers gave in. According to the official records of the mining company there had been some difference of opinion about the price of lodging which the workers had claimed to be unfairly high. Understandably the mining company had stayed firm since the lodging cost had not been the maximum 80 percent of the pay as allowed by law.
Within a week the two thousand immigrant workers had erected a dam and dried the bay. In twenty months the fossilized stone creatures were broken to rubble while black clouds rose from the mills. The coal contained by the black spots was used to refine the iron and lead contained by the shells of the fossilized creatures and rest was rejected to huge piles within the dried up twelve square kilometre bay area.
In less than two years the operation was completed and immigrant workers were shipped to where ever they came from. Mining company stopped all operations within the area immediately after all useful equipment was transported to where ever they were needed next. In some discussions it was wondered how the off shore registered mining company of Peakka Boitten had never paid any taxes to the city and Peakka never had any income. In official discussions Peakka was claimed hero of Helgor and he was awarded highest honours.
After two years the dam on the bay broke and sea reclaimed the site. Some say that salt from the tears of the workers had dissolved the lead from the shells of the ancient creatures thus poisoning the site. So great had been the sorrow of the workers for destroying the creatures. Others say that it is just the waste rock piles left behind that are leaking the lead in to the environment. No matter the reason. Of the stone giants nothing remains. Only a crude small scale imitation painted red and black looking like a deformed gigantic ladybird stands on the shore of the Vaehkalahti bay.
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Photo is from a playground where some stones are painted red with black spots and heads to look like ladybirds. I developed the raw multiple times from Rawstudio and even tried a totally different processing first. In the end I opted for two develops. One develop was optimized for the red and one for the black by adjusting white balance, curve and hue sliders.
Develops were loaded to Gimp as layers and black spot was masked on top of the image with red back ground. Luminance channel was extracted from the visible copy and placed on top in overlay mode. A gradient layer with black top left corner was also added in multiply mode to darken the top left corner a bit (opacity 14).
1/80, f/5, ISO200, 44 mm
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This photo is Creative Commons licensed so you can distribute it freely and you may use it for any noncommercial purpose. CC license also means that you may not use, distribute, abuse or steal this image under any such license that you pay of, namely you may not use or distribute this image under Finnish Copyright Groups Digilupa bit.ly/ozwGtt or corresponding license. Also please note that there is no Peakka Boitten, Vaehkalahti or Helgor and also all other details of the story are purely imaginary.
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Mines of Peakka Boitten
Before Wealth replaced the industrial economy, the city of Helgor sold the Vaehkalahti to the Peakka Boitten with "one copper coin for exploitation and excavation of low value minerals". Price set for the area was formal because the city officials deemed the operation to be "for general em-betterment of the city and it's people". It was estimated that the mine would require at least twenty full time employees for the duration of it's operation. An economical impact not to be sneered at. Vaehkalahti on the other hand was a swampy wasteland inhabited only by some useless birds and strange long dead stone creatures containing the low value minerals.
Three weeks after the deed was signed the immigrant workers arrived to the mine site. A story is told that the workers were amazed by the beauty of the site. The stone creatures had glittered ruby red and obsidian black in the sunset while surrounded by the screeching of thousands of birds nesting on the site.Story continues to tell that initially the workers had refused to start work on the site due to the beauty that they claimed to be a gift from the gods.
After three days without food or water the workers gave in. According to the official records of the mining company there had been some difference of opinion about the price of lodging which the workers had claimed to be unfairly high. Understandably the mining company had stayed firm since the lodging cost had not been the maximum 80 percent of the pay as allowed by law.
Within a week the two thousand immigrant workers had erected a dam and dried the bay. In twenty months the fossilized stone creatures were broken to rubble while black clouds rose from the mills. The coal contained by the black spots was used to refine the iron and lead contained by the shells of the fossilized creatures and rest was rejected to huge piles within the dried up twelve square kilometre bay area.
In less than two years the operation was completed and immigrant workers were shipped to where ever they came from. Mining company stopped all operations within the area immediately after all useful equipment was transported to where ever they were needed next. In some discussions it was wondered how the off shore registered mining company of Peakka Boitten had never paid any taxes to the city and Peakka never had any income. In official discussions Peakka was claimed hero of Helgor and he was awarded highest honours.
After two years the dam on the bay broke and sea reclaimed the site. Some say that salt from the tears of the workers had dissolved the lead from the shells of the ancient creatures thus poisoning the site. So great had been the sorrow of the workers for destroying the creatures. Others say that it is just the waste rock piles left behind that are leaking the lead in to the environment. No matter the reason. Of the stone giants nothing remains. Only a crude small scale imitation painted red and black looking like a deformed gigantic ladybird stands on the shore of the Vaehkalahti bay.
######################
Photo is from a playground where some stones are painted red with black spots and heads to look like ladybirds. I developed the raw multiple times from Rawstudio and even tried a totally different processing first. In the end I opted for two develops. One develop was optimized for the red and one for the black by adjusting white balance, curve and hue sliders.
Develops were loaded to Gimp as layers and black spot was masked on top of the image with red back ground. Luminance channel was extracted from the visible copy and placed on top in overlay mode. A gradient layer with black top left corner was also added in multiply mode to darken the top left corner a bit (opacity 14).
1/80, f/5, ISO200, 44 mm
######################
This photo is Creative Commons licensed so you can distribute it freely and you may use it for any noncommercial purpose. CC license also means that you may not use, distribute, abuse or steal this image under any such license that you pay of, namely you may not use or distribute this image under Finnish Copyright Groups Digilupa bit.ly/ozwGtt or corresponding license. Also please note that there is no Peakka Boitten, Vaehkalahti or Helgor and also all other details of the story are purely imaginary.
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