Franklin IR photos

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Franklin is a ghost town just east of Black Diamond, WA, built to mine coal in the Green River Gorge. The town was abandoned in the 1920's, and only foundations, a disorganized and overgrown cemetery, and a 1300 foot deep shaft (grated) remain. While exploring the area, I came up with the idea to return with Kodak High Speed Infrared Film (now sadly discontinued), and these are the resulting images. I entered them in the 2008 King County Fair, and won two blue ribbons for the Mine Cart and Headstone 2 images and four red ribbons for the others.


The mine cart:

Franklin mine cart IR

This was a hoist foundation, which pulled the mine carts from the mine in the hillside across from the foundation:

Franklin hoist foundation IR

This was the power plant that supplied power to the mines:

Franklin power plant foundation IR

This structure carried a water pipe for the town:

Franklin mine cart bridge IR

Finally, a couple of images from the cemetary:

Franklin headstone 1 IR

Franklin headstone 2 IR

All photos were taken with a Nikon FM and 19-35mm Tamron lens, on Kodak High Speed Infrared film, and printed in my darkroom on Ilford Multigrade paper.

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