Hardcoal Chronicles 40th

1973 - 2013

PENNSYLVANIA PITCH BLACK

The Darkest of Worlds, Above & Below the Ground

Scott Herring is not a professional photographer, and never wanted to be. Photography is merely his medium of choice — the preferred means of transfer for his Hardcoal cultural messages to his people in the Coal Region. If some of his industrial images of dump trucks, coal mines, and trains have more impact because of an aesthetic component, then so much the better for demanding a few seconds more attention from the viewer. Ideal for Scott, photography's great appeal was the unmatched instantaneous capture and transfer of information. Similarly, he feels its other great benefit is that “it's art for the impatient”.

With over 162,500 cataloged images expected to be rostered by the end of 2013, it's obvious that Scott doesn't waste time in the field. Taking time to ponder aesthetics, fuss over details, and smell the flowers would have resulted in so much having been lost to the lens — a trade-off that late-Twentieth Century Anthracite couldn't afford. So, in addition to be dangerous, this pursuit has been very hectic, stressful (often brutally cold, wet, and tiring), and expensive — not the making of a good time.

Nonetheless, Scott seemed suited for it. Customarily, photography would present plenty of problems to a ‘night person’, but not if you were born to a family tradition where much of your waking life was lived in the dark. The mines and railroads often operated around the clock; and even Pennsylvania deep miners on the day shift saw very little daylight from late October to early March. The People of the Black Diamond appropriately live in one of the few places on Earth where black is one of the predominant landscape colors. So, if you were going to record this world, you had better like the dark.