pennies

two links from so many at the wonderful penny dreadful:

mimosa found photos.
A couple of examples from "As It was" (via pd)

Stahl art Industrial Photography
coal mine, 'Winterslag'
boynton used to drive around the haunted hills region of the Latrobe Valley and view the ghost power plants with their industrial skeletons among the dairy farms, hugging and sometimes even traversing the winding roads- a scenic drive like an industrial Great Ocean Road. Never having a camera herself, when a photographer friend did make it down there once it was too late, these overhanging landmarks were suddenly removed. (pd)

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Comments: pennies

When I lived in the Latrobe Valley as a child we visited a town one Sunday that was about to be sacrificed to the open cut. I still remember how odd it felt- a perfectly normal looking town, with gardens and houses and roads but completely deserted. It was as if everyone had suddenly vanished.

I too wish I had some photos from this time.
Posted by mcb at October 6, 2003 05:25 PM

Was that Yallourn mcb?
A lot of people lament it. There's a new history of it but I haven't read it yet. It must have been pretty eerie to glimpse the deserted, doomed town.
Posted by boynton at October 7, 2003 12:03 PM

Hello,
just came across this discussion, as you linked to my website 'StahlArt' - thanks for that.
Regarding ghost towns: we still have a few of them here in the German lignite coal area between Cologne and Aachen and I always feel quite strange when I visit one of them. Small villages still disappear, because they are sacrificed to opencast mines.

Greetings Harald
Posted by Harald Finster at November 26, 2003 07:18 PM

Thanks Harald. Your photos are so wonderful.

The open cut mines here in Victoria - in the La Trobe Valley, still "cut" away, but rarely take out whole towns. There is one small township that has been condemned for years without disappearing, but there is a ghostly feel about it.
Posted by boynton at November 27, 2003 01:36 PM