This photo-essay discusses a photographic project in development. By focusing on its research process to date, I reflect on a series of photographs made by the American photographer Milton Rogovin (1909-2011) who travelled through the Scottish coalfields for three weeks in 1982. Within two years of his Families of Miners, Scotland 1982 the miners’ strike (1984-85) took place. Over 30 years later, the cultural and physical landscape of his photographs has dramatically changed. Drawing from Milton Rogovin’s photographs and his own words about his practice, the photo-essay begins to explore how the processes of looking back, revisiting, and retracing touch upon the collective memories and social histories of others.