Diepraam lived on the coast of IJmuiden in his youth, at which time he photographed the light dune landscape. He returned there in the mid-1990s and became fascinated by the black heaps of coal at the Hoogovens Steelworks. He lived on the site himself for a while in order to photograph this artificial Dutch landscape. Nothing is more difficult and challenging than photographing black on black, and making good prints of the shots. Only the white plumes of smoke stand out.