How All The Metal From A Single Mine Looks

This visual representation from Cape Town photographer Dillon Marsh shows just how much metal a mine can produce for a project on For What It’s Worth. In For What It’s Worth, Marsh attempts to quantify mining, “an industry that has shaped the history and economy of the country so radically.”

Marsh took pictures of five famous mines in South Africa, and then using data about extraction rates, calculated the size of a single, solid orb to represent the amount of metal that had been mined in total. Then using a rendering engine and some quick adjustments for scale, Marsh inserted each orb into the landscape.

“Mines speak of a combination of sacrifice and gain,” he says. “Their features are crude, unsightly scars on the landscape—unlikely feats of hard labour and specialized engineering, constructed to extract value from the earth but also exacting a price.”

via PetaPixel