Merimbula Wharf

Merimbula Wharf reaches out into the still water at Merimbula on the NSW South Coast, the timber pier on its piles running from the foreshore out to the deep-water platform at the end. The pier is painted white. The timber boards of the deck are weathered grey on the unpainted surfaces. The piles are darker at the waterline. A small fishing trawler is moored at the end of the wharf. The water is calm and the late-afternoon light is throwing long reflections off the painted timber. The hills behind the foreshore are blue and pale in the haze. The wharf has been there since the late nineteenth century, when Merimbula was a busy coastal shipping stop.

Brett photographed Merimbula Wharf at 17:31 on 29 August 2016, on the Nikon D750 he was shooting at the time. The Landscapes collection covers Brett's wider travel photography across Australia and Japan rather than the abandoned-places work the Lost Collective is built on. The Merimbula stretch of the Sapphire Coast carries a particular kind of late-winter afternoon light, with the south-westerly winds dying off in the hour before sunset and the water flattening out for a brief window. The wharf in the photograph is the one Merimbula residents have known by sight all their lives.