Project – Andy Martin – A Requiem for Coal
The disappearance of the coal industry had devastating consequences for the communities that once relied on the pits for their prosperity, and projects commemorating the heritage of the Durham mines include the evocative wet collodion portraits created by local photographer Andy Martin.
INTERVIEW: TERRY HOPE IMAGES: ANDY MARTIN
WHILE THE WORLDWIDE move away from fossils fuels has been inexorable and unstoppable, the fallout has been painful for the communities that once relied on the extraction of coal for their livelihood. A generation of miners saw their industry disappear almost overnight, leaving behind a rebuilding job that continues today, and a feeling that the heritage left behind needs to be appropriately commemorated.
Hence projects such as those organised by climate hope organisation Threads in the Ground and the Durham Miners Association at Redhills – home of the Pitman’s Parliament – whose latest joint venture has seen a 20-minute musical track, Ancestral Reverb, released as a vinyl record, pressed with a sprinkling of embedded coal dust. The recording, featuring the Durham Miners Association Brass Band and incorporating a spoken word piece curated by the poet Jacob Polley, was also a bit special: to ensure the authenticity of the ambience it made within the confines of an old drift coal mine at Beamish Colliery.
Ancestral Reverb aims to engage former mining communities and families in shared discussion around their heritage of solidarity as a powerful tool when talking about climate change. Alongside the audio side of the project visuals also had a crucial role to play, with acclaimed north-east photographers Andy Martin and Rachel Deakin being amongst the local creative talent involved. For Andy in particular, it was the chance to take part in a hugely worthwhile venture that perfectly complemented his ongoing Coal Face project to document the rich and diverse history of the Durham coalfield, shortly to be published in book form.
Looking to the past
A distinctive part of Andy’s approach has been his decision to utilise the ancient wet collodion process, whose origins hark back to 1851 – close to the dawn of photography itself – to record his portraits, the result being startlingly detailed close-up shots
“I learned the basics of black and white film at college,” he says, “but mostly ended up self-taught. I spent my formative photographic years photographing the old industrial remnants (now gone) of Sunderland at night, on slide film. Then around 15 years back I stumbled by chance upon the website of Seán MacKenna, who I believe was the first person to revive the collodion process in the UK back in the 90s. I was captivated and intrigued to find out more, so got in touch and not long after ended up spending the day at his home in north London, where he demonstrated the technique. I was captivated and knew I would have to try this out for myself.
“Seán sent me off with a copy of The Silver Sunbeam (a manual from the 1850s) and a list of chemical suppliers, and that was that! These days I’m mostly shooting plates with metal, but occasionally will use glass if I want to make contact prints from them. All wet collodion images are one-offs: even if you were to work with the same subject and lighting set-up, it’s nigh on impossible to replicate a plate exactly, due to the variables involved.”
