Machine hall of the winder house at Ikeshima Coal Mine, yellow-railed walkway past a grey Toshiba drive unit under an overhead crane.
Machine hall of the winder house at Ikeshima Coal Mine, yellow-railed walkway past a grey Toshiba drive unit under an overhead crane.

Machine Hall

Provenance

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

A yellow-railed walkway down the centre of the hall. A grey drive unit in a Toshiba housing with porthole doors at right. Smaller motors and a pressure gauge below the rail. An overhead travelling crane with its hook hanging. A glazed partition at left onto rows of switchgear. Paint lifted from the floor in sheets.

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

Interior of the winding house at Ikeshima Coal Mine, showing a light-blue winding engine with panelled doors, a teal overhead gantry crane, glass-paned windows, and a pressure gauge on the concrete floor.Interior of the winding house at Ikeshima Coal Mine, showing a light-blue winding engine with panelled doors, a teal overhead gantry crane, glass-paned windows, and a pressure gauge on the concrete floor.Interior of the winding house at Ikeshima Coal Mine, showing a light-blue winding engine with panelled doors, a teal overhead gantry crane, glass-paned windows, and a pressure gauge on the concrete floor.Interior of the winding house at Ikeshima Coal Mine, showing a light-blue winding engine with panelled doors, a teal overhead gantry crane, glass-paned windows, and a pressure gauge on the concrete floor.Interior of the winding house at Ikeshima Coal Mine, showing a light-blue winding engine with panelled doors, a teal overhead gantry crane, glass-paned windows, and a pressure gauge on the concrete floor.
01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title
Machine Hall
Series
Ikeshima
Catalogue
IKE-029
Process
Giclée
Captured
17 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

The machine hall of the No. 2 shaft winder house at Ikeshima Coal Mine, looking along a yellow-railed walkway between the electrical plant and the switchroom. A grey drive unit in a Toshiba housing stands at right with its porthole doors shut, smaller motors and a pressure gauge sit below the rail, and an overhead travelling crane spans the hall with its hook still hanging. The glazed partition on the left looks into rows of switchgear. Paint has lifted from the floor in sheets. The Koepe winder this plant drove ran on thyristor-Leonard control, precise enough to land a three-deck cage of 81 people at the pit bottom 733 m down.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

The machine hall of the No. 2 shaft winder house at Ikeshima Coal Mine, looking along a yellow-railed walkway between the electrical plant and the switchroom. A grey drive unit in a Toshiba housing stands at right with its porthole doors shut, smaller motors and a pressure gauge sit below the rail, and an overhead travelling crane spans the hall with its hook still hanging.

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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