Photo of a photo: Las Carboneras - the coal-women

These women worked in the canneries in San Juan de la Arena, in central Asturias, where the River  Nalon enters the Cantabrian Sea. Coal reportedly got carried down the Nalon and then washed back to shore by the sea. After work the women went down to the beach to collect the coal that got washed up on the beach, and take it home to burn or sell. The practice is reported to have continued into the 1980s.
This photo´s in the news this week because the town of San Juan is planning a commemoration of them - a grandson of one of the women in the photo is an artist and he is producing a painting based on a different photo of them, which will be exhibited in the town. This is happening this week-end.