Deep down in an abandoned mine is darkness, cold mist and total silence. Although a dangerous and claustrophobic experience by nature, the fascination of walking, climbing and crawling around deep underground quickly takes over. In the time when deep mining was a major challenge (i.e. pre 1920 or so), the excavation was very much concentrated to the locations where ore was found. This in turn results in an ever changing mine geometry, from small drifts of some 2 meters in heights to large halls with some hundred square meter intersection area – all to maximize the ore output for the very moment, by the methods available at the time.

Most abandoned mines quickly gets water filled when the pumps are switched off, but some have natural ways of getting rid of water and can be accessed to considerably depths.

Unfortunately, like in nature photography, a significant portion of the grandness is lost when trying to reduce the underground world into 2D images. It is, however fascinating to experience the actual (well…) colors and textures of the rock, which cannot be seen nor grasped in the beam of a torch down there. It is not a matter of different color temperature settings – the colors vary a lot, depending on the actual mineral composition at the spot where the shot is taken.
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