Through out September, October and November, with the help of our partners, we contacted ex-miners and some miners’ wives, from the Rhondda valley area. Katherin Lewis, the outrach officer from Rhondda Heritage Park was especially helpful.
We contacted miners who had worked in the Rhondda mines and from the Cynon Valley, slightly further afield. Miners we spoke too had worked in Lewis Merthyr (site of Rhondda Heritage Park), Abercynon, Lady Windsor (Ynysbwl), Maerdy, Taff Merthyr (Trelewis), Wattstown, Maritime (near Pontypridd), Coedely (Tonyrefael), Naval (near Pen-y-Graig), Gelli, Parc & Dare (Cwmparc), Fernhill, Ty-Mawr (Hopkinstown), Pentre and Deep Duffryn (Mountain Ash).
We set-up our mobile photogrammetry studio in Rhondda Heritage Park until we had to move as the Christmas elves took over! We hired out Trehafod Village Hall for the final sessions.
Portrait sessions were conducted following strict protocols put in place due to Covid. Despite the challenging conditions, the enthusiasm of the miners enabled for succesful sessions.
During the sessions the miners are asked to sit montionless for a couple of minutes in order to capture enough data that will enable to software to create accurate 3D data clouds and eventually 3Dmodels of the miners.
Following the portraits sessions the miners were interviewed at length and recorded. The recorded hitories of the miners were used to craete sound-bites for the heritage workshops at the schools.