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Hell Hole: Living on Jharia’s Fiery Mines
I consider it hell on earth, literally. The smell, the smoke, the heat, the conditions. No human should have to live here, work here, grow up here, exist here, yet thousands do.
The Jharia coal mines have been on fire in Jharkhand, India for almost 100 years. It’s one of the largest coal mines in Asia. As the fires spread, many people live with the ground beneath them burning every day. Houses crack, crumble, and subside…so do people. Locals tell stories about villagers sleeping and the earth beneath them giving way, their bodies never to be found in the inferno. Just a few months ago a 15 year-old girl disappeared in the fires while taking her morning bathroom break.
Villagers survive by picking illegal coal from the mines to sell at local markets for about a dollar a basket. They collect the coal, and burn it once in order to improve its quality, breathing in the poisonous smoke containing carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide and fine coal dust, among other things. None of the illegal miners wear protection.
This is a complex problem as a plan has been put through with hopes that the residents will move to a new re-homing area.
Locals are hesitant as the plan offers a small room for what is commonly a huge family. Most feel that they are asked to move because the price of the coal below them is worth more than their existence.
Photographs: Brent Foster
Website: www.brentfoster.com
More images from this essay: http://pa.photoshelter.com/c/brentfoster/
BRENT – i personally thought this essay is beautiful. the mystery, the framing, the B/W, the subject…. i also appreciated the nice tight edit… great work – i look forward to seeing more of your work.
Because a large component of this website is teaching, editing clearly has a big place here. You don’t need burn to put up a photo gallery. A single click in Lightroom will do that. So I don’t think an accusation of censorship is at all relevant.
Clearly, there will be situations where a decision is made not to run a photo or essay at all. But editorial discretion is hardly censorship. If your photography isn’t child porn or some other clearly illegal activity, nobody is going to stop you from publishing it yourself.
It’s not like the days before the web, there are no financial obstacles to publishing on the web. And a specific venue is under no obligation to publish your work.
David I am not concerned with censorship/editing issue on a site of this nature but there are a heap places out there on the wonderful world of the www where site owners or regular posters demand codes of conduct, ethics etc that are restrictive and clearly violate one’s freedom of expression etc.Of course one can go elsewhere and not post on a site………then again we have a govt in Australia saying that they would like to “edit” what we can access on the net
Jim I was not singling out anything on this site, all I stated is that editing is perceived as censorship by many who use the net……nor did I make any accusation of censorship here so don’t twist stuff around to suit your high horse morality
Actually, Imants, my comment was more general than specific. My reference to this venue specifically was only that. Nobody on any site on the web has an obligation to publish anything. But any photographer is free to publish his own work without restraint (unless the subject matter is illegal). Sign up for a free web site and put your photos there.
No it is quite specific in what you stated . “So I don’t think an accusation of censorship is at all relevant.” ……. as for the rest of your post it shows a surprising naivity
Australia making efforts to curb web freedom is a serious issue – if anti porn laws bleed into the arts world the subjective perception of some about what ´porn´ is could be restrictive..
regardless, the role of an editor is to deem the suitability and quality of content to my mind – far from being a negative ´censor´ which i understand some on the web may view them as, to me they hold the positive position of quality control..
what i find is that the web is astonishingly free.. while some websites might not be, as a whole it is a great deal freer than the gallery spaces and arts institutes which commonly enter the news for banning this or that photograph..
david AH could just take submissions and pick the ones he likes most and bang them up – as magazines take pitches for stories or work on spec, however what he´s doing is more – it´s a positive.
in attempting to bring good dialogue the work being shown has been varied and interesting..
for those worried about ´the edit´ and who´s edit we are actually seeing – it is the photographers.. always..
now – david has been helping me out with the last mile of the marathon project i´ve been on.. helping me to THINK about the work as the final choices are made.. lending his opinions and illustrating them by showing me the photographs of mine he appreciates.
the edit will always be mine though.. is mine.. from the 50 or 60 000 negs shot over 10 years i have got it down to 7 or 800 now.. david has seen 250.. so – what he has seen is in the first place very tightly edited..
so if i were to present ONLY the photographs david has chosen, who´s edit would that be?
for the most part – mine i believe…
i´m certain that in the last moments before publishing i will have greatest influence over the edit because i already have that..
sequencing and THINKING about 10 years worth of work.. narrowing down to 100-150 photos.. it needs a mirror for thoughts.. and david is kindly helping with that while in addition choosing stories..
it´s a great help.
i think it is tremendously sad when there is crit of the editing on burn.. because there is only positive and helpful stuff going on – nothing restrictive and everything encouraging.. and i´m sure people he has helped before will agree – we´re the ones doing the work.. having done the work..
d
Great work Brent.
Apologies Brent, I thought that you had made the final ten with this work…. who knows. Maybe you have. Regardless of grants and money and where you find it, I’m sure your work on this project will widen and deepen.
Keep going!
Regards.
its great that you are putting light on an issue which is present in india for so long…
yet the images dont show me somehting i havent already seen… being an indian that is…
I itch for something more…
good luck!