Apartment block in Ikeshima-machi under a climber, seen past dead trees the same growth has taken, power lines across the sky.
Apartment block in Ikeshima-machi under a climber, seen past dead trees the same growth has taken, power lines across the sky.

Ivy and Dead Trees

Provenance

Camera
Nikon F100
Film
Kodak Portra 400 · 35mm · ISO 400
Paper
Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

An apartment facade almost entirely covered by a climber, windows showing as dark openings. Glass still intact behind the growth. Tall dead trees in the foreground with the same growth on their trunks and limbs. Overhead power lines in parallel bands across the sky. A bundle of pipes below the lines. A pale sky.

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
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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.
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In situ

Ivy climbing the concrete facade of a disused worker apartment block on Ikeshima, with rows of rectangular windows and bare tree branches crossing the upper frame against a pale sky.Ivy climbing the concrete facade of a disused worker apartment block on Ikeshima, with rows of rectangular windows and bare tree branches crossing the upper frame against a pale sky.Ivy climbing the concrete facade of a disused worker apartment block on Ikeshima, with rows of rectangular windows and bare tree branches crossing the upper frame against a pale sky.Ivy climbing the concrete facade of a disused worker apartment block on Ikeshima, with rows of rectangular windows and bare tree branches crossing the upper frame against a pale sky.Ivy climbing the concrete facade of a disused worker apartment block on Ikeshima, with rows of rectangular windows and bare tree branches crossing the upper frame against a pale sky.
01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title
Ivy and Dead Trees
Series
Ikeshima
Catalogue
IKE-011
Process
Giclée
Captured
18 January 2026
Camera
Nikon F100
Film
Kodak Portra 400
Format
35mm
Film ISO
400
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

Looking up the wall of a company apartment block in Ikeshima-machi, its facade almost entirely lost under a climber, the windows reduced to dark openings in the green. Towering dead trees reach across a pale sky in the foreground, and even they are being taken: the same growth has gone up their bare trunks and is working its way out along the limbs. Overhead power lines cut the frame in parallel bands with a bundle of pipes running below them, and the glass in the windows is still intact behind the growth. Blocks like this one were built in reinforced concrete because the island had no ground to spare, and the plants have been reclaiming that concrete since the mine closed in 2001.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

Looking up the wall of a company apartment block in Ikeshima-machi, its facade almost entirely lost under a climber, the windows reduced to dark openings in the green. Towering dead trees reach across a pale sky in the foreground, and even they are being taken: the same growth has gone up their bare trunks and is working its way out along the limbs.

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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