Old Silica Mine

[Barry]

Took this image in one of the old disused Silica Mines which are not too far away from where I live. This was a 10 second exposure, the timber support was mainly lit up from my caving lamp, then whilst the shutter was open I remotely fired two flashguns, one directly behind me and one from the right of the image.

[chrisc]

There are parts of thi simage I greatly admire as per technique and outcome, but there are also parts which give me a touch of grief.

The structure, center left, lacks enough definition to see what it supports or what it is supporting. and...the light hitting it seems to dull it to this end. If you can, do a layer adjust or overlay to give more definition to the structure without losing the nice glare of the light....I don't think detail in the foreground scree pile is important, so there's an area that will benefit when you make the layer adjustment.

[Barry]

Thanks Chris, I never was happy with this image, so I do intend going back there over Christmas and having another go. I also need less shutter speed so that I can reduce the amount of light coming from my helmet light, but I do like the back lighting.

[jeeperman]

10 seconds....not sure I could be in there that long! lol I have played in some caves but not like this. I do have one in my summer plan, covered in 15ft of snow right now. ;D

Oh and as for the image, I do like it but I think I like where Chris was going.

[The Wirefox]

Barry, this has bags of atmosphere and because of that I am not to bothered about the minor niggles. I keep putting mu hand up to this to cover the left of the image to give a square crop. Not sure about that one. It is one of those photographs I am immediately drawn to and it keeps me engaged.

I was lucky enough to visit the coal face at the Chatterley Whitfield Colliery when I was in my late teens. I will never forget that experience and even in the late 70s it did justice to George Orwells visit t' pit face description in The Road to Wigan Pier. I am a bit taller than Orwell and the feeling of not being able to straiten up for what seems like miles is something akin to torture. What a place to work

[Barry]

Thanks Steve and Jeeperman. As I have already said, I do intend going back to try and recreate this image with slightly different lighting arrangements, hopefully over Christmas. Luckily the vein that was being followed in this mine was quite deep, so plenty of headroom in here, as Steve said in some of the coal mines, the roof can only be about 4 feet high, which can make for quite a uncomfortable trip over any sort of distance.