Pithead building of the No. 2 shaft at Ikeshima Coal Mine, looking up through rusted floors with yellow mesh panels numbered 1 and 2.
Pithead building of the No. 2 shaft at Ikeshima Coal Mine, looking up through rusted floors with yellow mesh panels numbered 1 and 2.

Pithead Landings

Provenance

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

Rusted steel columns and beams rising through several open floors. Corrugated roof sheets with daylight through the gaps. Yellow mesh panels at mid-height with the numbers 1 and 2 stencilled in red. Lengths of white webbing strap hanging and looping across the frame. A strip light on one beam. Debris heaped on the ground floor.

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.
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In situ

Corroded steel framing and two numbered yellow mesh barrier panels inside the main mining building at Ikeshima Coal Mine, with white fabric hanging loosely across them and daylight entering through holes in the corrugated roof above.Corroded steel framing and two numbered yellow mesh barrier panels inside the main mining building at Ikeshima Coal Mine, with white fabric hanging loosely across them and daylight entering through holes in the corrugated roof above.Corroded steel framing and two numbered yellow mesh barrier panels inside the main mining building at Ikeshima Coal Mine, with white fabric hanging loosely across them and daylight entering through holes in the corrugated roof above.Corroded steel framing and two numbered yellow mesh barrier panels inside the main mining building at Ikeshima Coal Mine, with white fabric hanging loosely across them and daylight entering through holes in the corrugated roof above.Corroded steel framing and two numbered yellow mesh barrier panels inside the main mining building at Ikeshima Coal Mine, with white fabric hanging loosely across them and daylight entering through holes in the corrugated roof above.
01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title
Pithead Landings
Series
Ikeshima
Catalogue
IKE-017
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

Looking up through the pithead building of the No. 2 shaft at Ikeshima Coal Mine, the structure the headframe rises out of and the place where every cage came to the surface. Rusted columns and beams climb toward a roof that has mostly gone, its remaining corrugated sheets letting the daylight straight through, and yellow mesh panels at mid-height carry the numbers 1 and 2 stencilled in red. Lengths of white webbing strap hang and loop across the framework, a strip light still clings to one beam, and the ground floor is heaped with debris. The stacked floors were the landings for a three-deck cage, 27 people stepping off each level at once, 81 to a wind.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

Looking up through the pithead building of the No. 2 shaft at Ikeshima Coal Mine, the structure the headframe rises out of and the place where every cage came to the surface. Rusted columns and beams climb toward a roof that has mostly gone, its remaining corrugated sheets letting the daylight straight through, and yellow mesh panels at mid-height carry the numbers 1 and 2 stencilled in red.

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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