Safety briefing room in the No. 2 Shaft office at Ikeshima Coal Mine, timber benches facing green chalkboards under a Japanese safety banner.
Safety briefing room in the No. 2 Shaft office at Ikeshima Coal Mine, timber benches facing green chalkboards under a Japanese safety banner.

Safety Briefing Room

Provenance

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

Timber benches and trestle tables in rows. Two green chalkboards on the front wall with a Japanese safety banner above them. A smaller safety sign to the right. Ceiling fans on a panelled ceiling. A telephone on the front table. Paint lifting in flakes from the nearest column.

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

A dust-covered briefing room at Ikeshima Coal Mine, with rows of wooden tables and bench seating facing two dark green chalkboards, a rotary telephone on a table, and a safety sign on the rear wall carrying Japanese text.A dust-covered briefing room at Ikeshima Coal Mine, with rows of wooden tables and bench seating facing two dark green chalkboards, a rotary telephone on a table, and a safety sign on the rear wall carrying Japanese text.A dust-covered briefing room at Ikeshima Coal Mine, with rows of wooden tables and bench seating facing two dark green chalkboards, a rotary telephone on a table, and a safety sign on the rear wall carrying Japanese text.A dust-covered briefing room at Ikeshima Coal Mine, with rows of wooden tables and bench seating facing two dark green chalkboards, a rotary telephone on a table, and a safety sign on the rear wall carrying Japanese text.A dust-covered briefing room at Ikeshima Coal Mine, with rows of wooden tables and bench seating facing two dark green chalkboards, a rotary telephone on a table, and a safety sign on the rear wall carrying Japanese text.
01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title
Safety Briefing Room
Series
Ikeshima
Catalogue
IKE-045
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

The safety office inside the No. 2 Shaft office building at Ikeshima Coal Mine, where crews sat through pre-start meetings and safety briefings before riding the cage down. Rows of timber benches and trestle tables face two green chalkboards, and the banner above them reads あとでよりいまが大切「点検と確認」, which translates as "now matters more than later: inspect and confirm". A smaller sign to the right, 坑内美化も保安の第一歩, calls a tidy pit the first step in safety. Ceiling fans still hang from the panelled ceiling, a telephone sits on the front table, and the paint on the nearest column has lifted away in flakes.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

The safety office inside the No. 2 Shaft office building at Ikeshima Coal Mine, where crews sat through pre-start meetings and safety briefings before riding the cage down. Rows of timber benches and trestle tables face two green chalkboards, and the banner above them reads あとでよりいまが大切「点検と確認」, which translates as "now matters more than later: inspect and confirm".

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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