The 'Ace of Spades' and 'Big Geordie' draglines are among the many earthmoving machines photographed by Dave Wootton from 1986 to 1994. He captured them on some 32 surface coal mines in the midlands and north of England and south Wales. Some 230 of these fine shots - including panoramas of the mines - are included in his new book.
Opencast Images: an Informal Look at British Coal Opencast Sites 1986-1994 is now available in hardback from Old Pond at £24.95. Full information about the book is given at the same link.
Coal industry expert and author Keith Haddock, whose latest book, Modern Earthmoving Machines, was published in America by Iconografix earlier this year, has seen a copy of Dave Wootton's book. He has some enthusiastic comments:
"For anyone remotely connected with the British opencast coal scene, this book is an absolute ‘must’. I particularly like the clear panoramic site views used wherever possible. I also appreciate that Dave notes the dates of each of his site visits. That is useful information for research to tie in various aspects of a site, machine relocations, etc. All-in-all, ‘Opencast Images’ is a wonderful pictorial view of the British opencast scene. I can’t find anything to criticize about it."
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