Note: You will want to view these by rolling your mouse over each thumbnail horizontally. Scroll passed the picture before you horizontally scroll back around to the next row. Scroll down as you do this.
Anyone who has grown up in Southern Indiana probably remembers seeing these monsters swinging their shovels around from miles away. Ever since I was a boy, I have had a fascination with dragline cranes. They were the major workforce behind coal mining where I grew up. Now, many of them sit awaiting their face for scrap. The last one I went to photograph was scrapped before I had a chance to get interior shots. This is a second chance.
If you have even seen Southern Indiana on Google maps, you'll see that many areas look as if they've been shanked. That is the work of strip mining, which was a technique used for many, many years to produce coal for electricity. Strip mining has been a controversial issue as it may not be the most environmentally friendly way to get coal, however, many of the areas have been reclaimed by nature. You can see the hills and valleys created by this technique in some of the pictures.
