Fine Art Photographs of South Wales MIners, Colleries, Pits and Coal Mines-photographs for sale

Fine Art Photography-Photographs of Miners, Collieries,Coal Mines and Pits for Sale

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Artist and photographer, Andrew Johnson, spent four years working photographically alongside the miners of Taff Merthyr Colliery, South Wales, until its closure in 1993. Working empathically with the miners he produced a large body of photographic work which was widely exhibited nationally.

His background of having been brought up in the South Wales Valleys, the same mining communities that played a key role in developing the social and political structures that helped build our country, was a great influence on him. Through his work at the colliery he experienced the infamous, local community spirit and identity which underwent massive social upheaval during those turbulent times, influences that were to reshape the life of a generation of people.

Taff Merthyr Colliery saw times not only of great prosperity and productivity, but also periods of despair. Technological and geographical difficulties often accounted for falls in productivity, where pits were deemed to be uneconomic, and could be closed within a period as short as three months. This was the Official Review Program! Contracts with the newly privatized electricity companies soon expired; subsidized foreign coal was now in competition with unsubsidized British Coal.

The miners fought hard to keep the pits open, frequently increasing productivity by 200- 300 per cent which was never enough for the government.

He saw many miners taking voluntary redundancy, it was their easiest way out of the uncertainty that being a miner had become for them.

In 1984 the the workforce in the South Wales coalfield was over 22,000 men. No deep coal mines are now left in the South Wales Valleys since the closure of Tower Colliery in 2008. Tower Colliery was bought by the miners in 1994, despite government attempts to close it having deemed it uneconomic. The South Wales valleys reached the end of an era and their way of life was to change forever.

Fine Art Photographs of South Wales MIners, Collieries, Pits and Coal Mines for Sale.

Open and limited edition, fine art photographs will be available to purchase on the website in the near future.

The above photographs are low resolution copies of prints. All photographs for sale are printed from very high quality, digitally scanned, Medium Format negatives.

Philosophy of Photography

A Personal Philosophy of Photography

Photography and Art

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In photography, most photographs are made in a brief moment, a split second where a particular event becomes unique, frozen within the continuum of time. Photographs exhibit a paradigm shift between the present and the past whose key holds an unique meaning for each of us; something that isn't immediately apparent. The photograph is nebulous and mesmeric and has a quality that is deeper and more profound than just the object that it appears to be. Photography is the confluence of chance, observation and memory. Photography and Art tap into the very life force that drives us. Our sense of the other worldly and mysterious and the profound experiences that enrich our lives and take on a spiritual quality. Photographs reflect our dreams, wishes, wants, and insecurities - a panopoly of memories and emotions, drives and intents. Visual images serve as an abstract representation of the personal and collective unconscious and bring moments of private meaning into being. Photography has its own, unique authority existing through a combination of the elements it is composed of, whilst in the same instant, confirming a reflection of our own approaching mortality. There is a photographic paradox of death present in the photographic, visual image.

Photography and Society. Our world is saturated with visual images that function for a great diversity of purposes. On a personal level people like to collect photographs, display them in their homes and gregariously share them with others. They are important personal icons that we construct around ourselves which give us a sense of posession of the world around us and help define our place within it. Photographs serve as a testament to the multitude of experiences we have lived and shared, both as individuals and collectively as a global people. History is embedded in them. What makes a good photograph is something very individual; our background, emotions, self identity, personal aesthetics, culture and language are all influential elements that embellish the detail of private meaning that becomes significant to the images we identify with. Photographs that take on personal meaning stimulate memories of relative, past events and emotions in our lives, times that otherwise may have faded away. The broader context of photographs that saturate society show us small slots of time and history that we never would have experienced, which is highly influential upon us.

Photography is all things to all people. Photography is used in the advertising industry to convey a sense of glamour envy in order to sell us things. It is extensively used in the fashion and glamour industries; editorial photography is used to illustrate articles in magazines; whilst pornography relies upon the photographic image for its own survival; photographs are informants of identity and are used for methods of social control. Photographs are polymorphic entities.

What does the camera and photography represent to us?
Do we shoot, take or make photographs?
How conscious are we in the moments when we use the camera to intervene in the passage of time?

Fine Art Photography

Artists website exhibiting: photography art, black and white photography, portraiture, landscape photography and fine art photoworks.

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Open and limited editions of fine art photographs and prints available to purchase on the website.

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