No. 2 shaft headframe at Ikeshima Coal Mine in a multiple exposure, broken windows and branches layered over the tower.
No. 2 shaft headframe at Ikeshima Coal Mine in a multiple exposure, broken windows and branches layered over the tower.

Headframe Ghosts

Provenance

Camera
Nikon F100
Film
Cinestill 800T · 35mm · ISO 800
Paper
Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

A Z-shaped headframe with its head sheave and landing platforms above a corrugated winder house. Broken window frames and roof steel overlaid across the sky. Tree branches drifting across the tower. Walls of the surface buildings showing twice. Grass and scrub at the base.

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
Size
Type
Colour
✓
Signed, numbered, with COA. Made to order in 5 to 10 business days (unframed). Shipped in protective packaging with edition certificate, paper-stock reference and a printed care guide.
See certificate sample →

Shipping Free shipping over $250. Ships worldwide, rates calculated at checkout.

Returns Damaged in transit? We replace it. Full policy →

Ships within 10 business days · signed & numbered

In situ

Multiple exposures stack the steel headframe and spoked winding wheels of Ikeshima Coal Mine above a rendered engine house, with blurred foliage across the foreground and a corrugated metal structure to the right.Multiple exposures stack the steel headframe and spoked winding wheels of Ikeshima Coal Mine above a rendered engine house, with blurred foliage across the foreground and a corrugated metal structure to the right.Multiple exposures stack the steel headframe and spoked winding wheels of Ikeshima Coal Mine above a rendered engine house, with blurred foliage across the foreground and a corrugated metal structure to the right.Multiple exposures stack the steel headframe and spoked winding wheels of Ikeshima Coal Mine above a rendered engine house, with blurred foliage across the foreground and a corrugated metal structure to the right.Multiple exposures stack the steel headframe and spoked winding wheels of Ikeshima Coal Mine above a rendered engine house, with blurred foliage across the foreground and a corrugated metal structure to the right.
01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title
Headframe Ghosts
Series
Ikeshima
Catalogue
IKE-014
Process
Giclée
Captured
17 January 2026
Camera
Nikon F100
Film
Cinestill 800T
Format
35mm
Film ISO
800
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

The No. 2 shaft headframe at Ikeshima Coal Mine, its head sheave and landing platforms rising above the winder house, seen through several exposures laid over one another on a single frame. Broken window frames and roof steel from another part of the plant bleed through the sky, tree branches drift across the tower, and the corrugated walls of the surface buildings show twice at once. The Koepe winder below that sheave carried a cage of 81 mine workers 733 m down the shaft; here it stands as a ghost of itself, several times over.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

The No. 2 shaft headframe at Ikeshima Coal Mine, its head sheave and landing platforms rising above the winder house, seen through several exposures laid over one another on a single frame. Broken window frames and roof steel from another part of the plant bleed through the sky, tree branches drift across the tower, and the corrugated walls of the surface buildings show twice at once.

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

Read the full story

Articles when they're published. The history behind a place. The day of a shoot. The work between prints. No marketing, no schedule.

You're subscribed.