My hometown was a booming iron ore mining community for decades during the 20th century. Now most of the open pit mines have become lakes and the area has been turned into a state recreation area.
Around 2010, before the area was popular with outdoor enthusiasts, I spent some time exploring and photographing the lakes and hills that now inhabit the sites of the old mines. Even though I had lived in the area most of my life, I found a ton of interesting places I had never visited before. My favorite of those was an old mining structure at the Sagamore Unit near Riverton.
When I first saw the towering cement columns though the trees, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. So much of the mining infrastructure in the area no longer exists, and to see something like this in the forest near my childhood home was a lot of fun.
I’ve tried to photograph the structure (There are actually two of them, but one is much more hidden by the trees) many times and never really liked the results, besides one previous try with a Polaroid for my “Lifted Dreams” series. This recent trip was different and I really like what I captured. In addition to these shots, I also created another new image for “Lifted Dreams” the same day. Both of those are below.
Thanks for Reading!
Beautiful work Dan!