Old School, Bedwellty Pits

“They say the camera never lies. It lies every day.”
César Romero
Hands up, this isn’t what I thought I saw when I photographed it, but I arrived on an impulse to photograph the old school as was. In case you’re wondering what I’m wittering on about there was no snow in the scene, I’d come to capture something of the murky grey mists clinging to the surrounding mountains and this was my last opportunity on the way home. A wet, grey day but one filled with possibilities for a B/W photo, but I was also ‘busy’ today; calling at Talywain (family history related), Brynmawr (long overdue to buy new jeans as the ‘trendy’ worn holes in mine were becoming embarrassing) and the Blaenau Gwent Heritage Forum afternoon talk at Bedwellty House in Tredegar (excellent, as was my lunch there). I’ve stopped and photographed this dilapidated old school building a few times, including when I made the walk up to the old winding gear preserved on the hillside above. It was only when I started to ‘make’ my photo for today that this image ‘appeared’, so I stuck with it and worked with it as a (false) snow scene. Up here it could well have been snow on a day like today, if it had been a bit colder. Just goes to show that maybe the camera doesn’t lie, but the image I made could easily be very misleading.