The primary reason for my Wales trip was to photograph the remaining mines for my typology and I have opted to photograph them all from the same side on perspective. This is easier said than done, and not all of the remaining headgears can be photographed side on, but I was going to do my best to do so.

The upcast wasn’t too much of an issue, as it was close to the road and could be photographed side on from the pavement on the opposite side. This has been the most recently restored of the two at Cefn Coed and was still in pieces when I’d originally planned to visit in 2021. Since its restoration it’s had a modern staircase erected alongside, presumably to enable visitors to visit the top when at some point the museum reopens. I’ve muted the colours in the black and white conversion so it blends into the rest of the structure.

The downcast is a far larger structure and is at 90 degrees to the road, meaning the only way to see it side on is to step over the waist high fence and wander over the acres of concrete that were presumably the colliery yard at one time. The headgear is surrounded by a much higher fence with a CCTV camera watching the gate – it makes sense to secure just this than run a very long fence and cameras around the perimeter of the the whole site.

The acres of empty concrete worked well for me as it allowed me to get a decent distance away so that I didn’t need to do much perspective correction in post-processing (it’s quite a bit taller than the upcast).

While I was on the wrong side of the fence, I thought I’d try another side-on view of the upcast. Unfortunately the site narrowed at that point meaning that I couldn’t get far enough away unless I used my 14-30 super wide angle lens which had the inevitable consequence of some crazy converging verticals. I’ve sort of managed to correct them but the chimney in the background does look a bit weird, so this one probably won’t be used in the typology.