View allAll Photos Tagged mining
I’m often reminded how lucky I am to call this place home. Over the last ten years it’s this passion for photographing the land and sea around here that’s really fired my enthusiasm for the corner of the land I’ve spent almost all of my life in. And when I think about it, it strikes me that there are a number of Cornwalls. You’ll probably recognise a few of them yourselves, from the foodie yachtie “you simply must” well heeled enclaves that most of us locals shun, to the picture perfect villages that we also don’t go to that much - certainly not in the holiday season. Then there’s the mysterious east, on the other side of the sparse open spaces of Bodmin Moor, just across the water from Plymouth - quiet snaking river bends, overlooked, underrated by everyone except for the few that know. The buckets and spades at Newquay and Perranporth, and the artists’ havens of St Ives and Newlyn. The surfers, waiting patiently on their boards throughout the seasons at Fistral, Porthtowan, Portreath and Gwithian. There’s the old Cornwall, our equivalent of the pit villages, mining remnants left over from when the few square miles outside the front door were the richest on the planet - all long gone in these poor relation towns of Redruth and Camborne - but it’s this part of the county that’s home to me now after growing up and living in boat lovers’ Falmouth for more than forty years. Love brought me here to share my life with Ali, who has never lived more than a couple of miles from the middle of Redruth. Her roots are entwined through countless generations of this town and I’ve never been happier than I am here. Nowhere else has ever felt quite so much like home to me.
And talking of love, there’s another Cornwall. A timeless and lonely one where the winds howl, the gulls shriek and the wild ocean roars like an approaching thunderstorm on wintry days. The place where you can taste the salt in the air when you stand on the clifftops. You’ll find it in the northern reaches beyond the Camel Estuary, or on the Lizard to the south, and best of all for me, you can embrace it in the far west. Every time I leave that roundabout on the other side of Penzance things begin to change. Often I take the third exit towards St Just and Pendeen, where Cape Cornwall, Porth Nanven, Kenidjack Castle and the incomparable Botallack lie in wait. Each of those locations have seduced me over and over again like a schoolboy who can’t decide which girl he’s got the biggest crush on. Each one sets the pulses charging whenever I even think about going. Just recently, I’ve been taking the second exit rather more often, driving the last nine miles of the mainland along a road that winds and rises gently towards the edge of eternity at Land’s End. At the moment I can’t get enough of the place. Not Shaun the Sheep World obviously. Besides which, the tourists have mostly gone home now. What has been grabbing me though is that there are more than a few compositions to be found here, for which few ever seem to stumble past the classic view of the stacks - the subject of my last story from Land’s End. Judging by the response, it seems many of you like that view too. I’m pretty fond of it myself - even if I don’t take the camera from the bag, I always stop to take it all in again. But as a stand up comedian once said, “come here, there’s more!”
It was the second time in a week I’d perched the tripod on this rock, hanging over the Atlantic as it bashed onto the base of the cliffs fifty or sixty feet below. I mean just look at the textures in those granite walls! I knew there was a shot waiting here, but I hadn’t quite worked it out yet. The previous Monday had delivered neither colour nor contrast and I’d come away with a black and white long exposure, which I liked well enough, but it wasn’t quite ticking my boxes. I couldn’t help feeling that the finished image was leaning very slightly to the right - and by that I don’t mean the horizon needed levelling. Something was needed, just a little something on the left to even things up a bit. But what can you do when there’s nothing there to balance it all? Build another Shaun the Sheep World half a mile out to sea? Consigning the existing one to it might be a better plan. Enough said - I’m supposed to have stopped ranting about the visitor centre now. Nobody forces me to stay there once I’ve parked the van you know.
But now things were a bit more colourful. I’d deliberately chosen today because the sun had finally promised to pierce the grey skies after a prolonged absence. But should I slightly tweak the foreground and find a nice big rock to frame the left? I tried, but it wasn’t working. And then the blindingly obvious appeared in front of me. A bright patch of sunlight and a big yellow beam spreading across the sea in front of the camera. Sometimes that’s all it takes to restore the balance. The long exposure did something else too, both clouds and sea radiating away from Longships towards me to emphasise the distant subject - erm, for which I used a focal length blend if you were wondering. With a wide angle lens it almost vanishes completely if you want to include the textures in those cliffs. Sometimes you need a bit of jiggery pokery if you want your image to resemble the view in front of you. That’s enough of the technical nonsense now. Otherwise the gaps will start to appear very quickly. Besides which, if you’re still reading, your eyelids have probably closed over a couple of times already and I don’t want to send you to sleep.
Next, I really need to try and make it here in time for a winter sunrise. There are other compositions too you see, and they don’t all involve pointing your camera in the same direction. I think I’m going to be here quite often in the coming months. The love affair with another Cornwall isn’t going away anytime soon.
My last of 4 record shots of bees from yesterday's looooong walk, via a diversion because of a landslip, from Failford to Stair along the River Ayr. This one was busy mining its burrow in a footpath. Any help with ID much appreciated.
The bee in this shot, and those in the previous two uploads were all in the same spot.
The hills above Butte display 14 headframes, all that is left of the old copper mining operations. Butte was founded in as a mining camp in 1864 and quickly grew into an enormous copper boom town of close to 100,000. Current population is around 34,000. Mining generated billions of dollars in profits for the mine owners but has left the city with the nations largest Superfund cleanup site. Pit mining continues but unfortunately the public tours were closed as a result of the pandemic. There are lots of signs describing the mines served by the various headframes and commemorating the deaths of those who died in mining disasters. The city is preserving it's mining history.
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I called at the mining museum at Astley Green where I was made very welcome by the volunteers.
The steel lattice headgear for Number 1 Shaft is the only colliery headgear remaining in Lancashire. The structure, which is over 100 feet high, was built by Head Wrightson & Co. in 1912 and replaced the original wooden shaft sinking headgear.
The Ballarat Mining Exchange was built between 1887-9, and was used for trading of shares in mining companies during the gold rush. It still houses the Mining Exchange Gold Shop today.
I think this is the Andrena Fulva (Tawny Mining Bee) But as always please correct/confirm my ID for me - thank you. Whatever she turns out to be she loves the golden forsythia HWW ;0)
A couple weeks ago, Wilbur and I went to look for the miner's camp of the Horseshoe Mine. Instead of finding the camp, we found the mine. Initially Wilbur wasn't interested in returning to unpleasant bushwhacking on the backside of Mailbox Peak, but I convinced him I knew where to look. So we went and found the camp fairly easily.
Not much is left of it. While the outline of the buildings are somewhat visible, no actual structure is standing. Just a few pots and pans, cans, bottles, washbasins, the base of a stove, parts of rusty bedsteads and a laundry sink are scattered about in the last stages of decomposition. One of the most interesting relics was the system of rusty pipes for bringing water from a nearby creek. We followed the pipes until they disappeared under a tangle of blown down trees. It also appears the camp may have been used by loggers who came about 10 - 20 years after the miners as there were a couple of rusty, twisted saws present as well as some truck engine components.
We ate lunch near the site of the camp and thought about what the surroundings must have been like during the era of mining from 1904 - 1909 when the hillsides were covered with old growth forests. We surmised the miners used mules and wondered how they cared for them on the steep slopes covered in trees. And we wondered about the difficulties of logging. We could see the springboard notches in the enormous decaying stumps around us. Both the miners and loggers lived challenging lives trying to extract a living from the earth.
PS: The mine and the camp are difficult to find. I had GPS coordinates but they were marginally helpful as the GPS coordinates we got onsite were different than the ones available on-line. Good luck if you try to go there. Creek crossing and bushwhacking steep slippery slopes criss-crossed in blow-down await you.
I think this is an Early Mining Bee (Andrena haemorrhoa) but didn't capture the tip of her abdomen where a tuft of orange hairs might confirm that - I was too interested by the pollen collected on her legs...
I coaxed this small Mining Bee onto a Dandelion and photographed her when she paused. This is one of five frames that I managed to take before she got her metabolism going and took off. One of the benefits of looking for something to photograph early in the morning when it's still cool outside.
Tech Specs: Canon 80D (F11, 1/250, ISO 100) + a Canon MP-E 65mm macro lens (2x) + a diffused MT-26EX-RT with a Kaiser adjustable flash shoe on the "A" head (the key), E-TTL metering, -1/3 FEC). This is a single, uncropped, frame taken hand held. In post I used Topaz Sharpen AI, Denoise AI, and Clarity in that order.
It seems like ages since I've posted any macro. I've been playing around with some new lenses, but today I felt the need to go out and find some small friends, so on went the MP-E!
I found this small solitary bee wandering around on the patio floor. I think it had a damaged wing as it could only fly small distances before wandering around again. I placed my finger in front of it, and it quickly climbed up so I guess it must have been a bit cold.
It was happy to pose for a few photos, so I gave it some honey-water by way of payment before leaving it in a quiet corner.
Stacked from 4 images @ 1:1 (quite a bit crop)
Former Reserve Mining SD38-2 No. 1242 , now Progressive Rail 42, rests at Norma on a quiet Saturday morning.
There were a couple of these in our Staffordshire garden today. I thought at first that they were female Halictus rubicundus but have been advised by a follower on Twitter that it's actually Andrena dorsata - the Short-fringed Mining-bee.
This is great because it's a new bee for the garden and a new bee for me too. Hopefully I'll recognise it if I see it again!
The ceiling in the entrance of the Hearst Memorial Mining Building on the University of California, Berkeley campus.
The building houses, among other departments, the Materials Science and Engineering Department.
The Beaux-arts revival style building was designed by renowned architect John Galen Howard and is a California Historical Landmark and on the National Register of Historic Places.
One view of Federal Mill #3, once the largest lead mine and processing plant in the world. At its height, 4500 people worked here. Now a Missouri state historic site, it includes a museum and additional exhibits, with more planned for the near future. A fascinating place, huge in scale, with many interesting photo opportunities.
A male mining bee (Andrena sp.) resting on a leaf.
A Thank you to Bernhard Jacobi (terraincognita96) for the identification.
~Bri'in abandond mining sektor~
".....This is CT-4765 nickname Dodge, i think something follows me..... If any one hear this sent help,...... whatever this thing is, its very dangerous and quick."
"~Unidentified Sounds and screams~"
"What the?!,.......It's coming, i have to go,.... i think,.....argh--!......"
A historical information board at the Carbondale Scenic Overlook along U.S. Route 6 near Carbondale, Pennsylvania.
Today, we travel back to the Magic Kingdom for an inside shot of the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train ride. What's really great about photographing this ride is the fact that as you enter the mine, the train slows down allowing you to get some pretty cool shots. Do you do a lot of "on-ride" photography when allowed? Have a magical day?
A female Tawny Mining Bee (Andrena fulva) in our Staffordshire garden yesterday.
It was a great day for bee photography. The day before had been warm and sunny and lots of bees had been active. They it turned chilly and some of those that ventured out got "stranded"; waiting for some sunshine. An opportunity not to be missed!
Cool, partly cloudy, weather created the perfect conditions for slowing down this Mining Bee so I could get close to it.
Tech Specs: Canon 90D (F11, 1/125, ISO 200) + a Canon MP-E 65mm macro lens (set to 2x) + a diffused MT-26EX-RT, E-TTL metering, -2/3 FEC. This is a single, uncropped, frame taken hand held. In post I used Topaz Denoise AI and Clarity in that order. ISO and shutter set to expose the sky in the background.
Giant rotary excavator in the open-pit mining area Garzweiler (Germany).
Explore front page on March, 16th 2008 :-)
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