Doorway in the No. 2 Shaft office at Ikeshima Coal Mine, a Keep Out barrier in front of the rusting headframe steel.
Doorway in the No. 2 Shaft office at Ikeshima Coal Mine, a Keep Out barrier in front of the rusting headframe steel.

Headframe Ruins

Provenance

Camera
Nikon F100
Film
Fujifilm Velvia 50 · 35mm · ISO 50
Paper
Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

Steel barrier with a Japanese Keep Out sign across a doorway. Rusted structural steel and collapsed yellow balustrades beyond it. Sunlight through gaps in corrugated cladding. Ply-lined walls stained dark, a grit-covered concrete floor, and a row of small windows on the right onto the same steelwork.

Edition
Open edition

Open edition
Printed to order, no fixed quantity. Each print is hand-signed by the photographer.

Limited edition
A fixed number of prints exist. Once sold, the edition closes permanently. Each print is individually numbered and signed.

$100.00 AUD
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Type
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In situ

A rusted metal barrier carrying a no-entry sign blocks a doorway in a weathered interior at Ikeshima, with collapsed steelwork and broken pipes visible beyond in bright sunlight.A rusted metal barrier carrying a no-entry sign blocks a doorway in a weathered interior at Ikeshima, with collapsed steelwork and broken pipes visible beyond in bright sunlight.A rusted metal barrier carrying a no-entry sign blocks a doorway in a weathered interior at Ikeshima, with collapsed steelwork and broken pipes visible beyond in bright sunlight.A rusted metal barrier carrying a no-entry sign blocks a doorway in a weathered interior at Ikeshima, with collapsed steelwork and broken pipes visible beyond in bright sunlight.A rusted metal barrier carrying a no-entry sign blocks a doorway in a weathered interior at Ikeshima, with collapsed steelwork and broken pipes visible beyond in bright sunlight.
01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title
Headframe Ruins
Series
Ikeshima
Catalogue
IKE-046
Process
Giclée
Captured
17 January 2026
Camera
Nikon F100
Film
Fujifilm Velvia 50
Format
35mm
Film ISO
50
Paper
Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm
Location
Ikeshima, Nagasaki, Japan
Recognised by
Highly Commended in Multimedia at the 2016 National Trust of Australia (NSW) Heritage Awards
02 LOCATION

Ikeshima, Nagasaki, Japan

Map · Mapbox · OpenStreetMap

03 THE STORY

About this print

Inside the No. 2 Shaft office at Ikeshima Coal Mine, a steel barrier carrying a 立入禁止 (Keep Out) sign closes off a doorway that now opens straight onto the headframe of the No. 2 shaft. The wall that once separated the two has gone. What remains is a view of rusting structural steel, yellow balustrades collapsed and hanging at angles, and sunlight pushing through the gaps in the corrugated cladding beyond. On this side, ply-lined walls and a grit-covered concrete floor lead up to the barrier, and a row of small windows on the right frames the same steelwork. Nothing here burned. The ply and the steel are stained dark from decades of exposure to sea air. This was the shaft the mine workers went down: 733 m deep, with a three-deck cage that carried 81 of them at a time.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

Inside the No. 2 Shaft office at Ikeshima Coal Mine, a steel barrier carrying a 立入禁止 (Keep Out) sign closes off a doorway that now opens straight onto the headframe of the No. 2 shaft. The wall that once separated the two has gone.

Brett Patman

Ikeshima

The series

Ikeshima

1959 to 2001 · 54 photographs

Ikeshima Coal Mine operated beneath the seabed off Nagasaki from 1959 until 29 November 2001, making it the last new coal mine to open in Japan and the last large-scale underground colliery to close. At its 1970 peak the island held 7,770 residents on a 0.86 km² rock in the Gotō Sea, housed in company-built concrete towers above a mine that reached 650 m below sea level.

View all in this series →

05 SIZE GUIDE

Print sizes

The anatomy view shows what this finish is as a physical object: paper margin, mat band, frame depth, acrylic profile. The comparison strip shows how each size sits relative to the others at true scale. Click a size or a finish to update both.

Anatomy · true ratio
07 MORE FROM IKESHIMA

53 other prints in this series

All prints
Dim office at Ikeshima Coal Mine, a white hard hat and a cup on two desks below a buckled venetian blind.
Hard Hat$100.00
View from an apartment window in Ikeshima-machi, utility pole and wires above silver grass with the Matsushima power station chimney across the sea.
Apartment Window$100.00
Window in the No. 2 Shaft office at Ikeshima Coal Mine, glass gone and a creeper hanging in over the sill above the sea.
Ocean Outlook$100.00
Pithead bath in the No. 2 Shaft office at Ikeshima Coal Mine, concrete troughs on a tiled floor with a vent fan on the far wall.
Pithead Bath$100.00
08 BY POST · NO SPAM

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