I mainly shoot post-industrial landscapes and use various maps to explore areas. The maps vary from early publications, such as Andrew Yarranton's map of the Stour Navigation from around 16660, he petitioned Parliament to pass an Act allowing the river to be canalised between Stourport & Stourbridge, maps of the Earl of Dudley's estate, early 1" to 1 mile & 8" to 1 mile OS maps, modern OS maps, and older ones in-between. Oh and an A-Z if available
Yarranton's map, shows a tramway, the trackbed still exists as a public footpath.
This was from a 5 year project 1989-94, I highlighted the canals, tramways, railways (private & mainline), collieries, and iron works, transposing what I found to a Birmingham A-Z.
This wasn't the first project where I'd used maps but would have been impossible without them.
Later I studied Industrial Archaeology at Birmingham University and drew up multi layer maps in Corel Draw, with the older maps as a base.
This way I was able to show how the iron industry moved from the whole of the Stour valley to predominantly the Black Country coalfield with the move from charcoal to coal fired furnaces. Coal was being used in the Black Country in the 1660s by Dud Dudley.
The serendipity in this project was a friend saying let's go take some photos on the way home from work, and I ended up sitting on a slag heap in Warrens Hall park with an amazing view. I said to my friend that I would spend 5 years photographing the area with the idea to exhibit the work at the end, and that's what happened, with some Arts funding towards the end.
The slag heap
Ian
