Descent

Provenance

Camera: NIKON D810
Lens: 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Settings: 14mm · f/8.0 · 3s · ISO 100
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

A steep, narrow staircase climbs through the centre of the frame at Morwell Power Station and Briquette Factories, corroded on every tread and stringer. Yellow-painted handrails cross in a grid across several levels of metal grating, their paint flaking over rust, rising toward a ceiling of structural beams and exposed conduit. A white support column carries its own run of piping along one edge, with a grey pipe further up still marked ASBESTOS-FREE.

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

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

Descent at Morwell Power Station, black-framed print (in-situ_0170a0f7-d74e-4497-9593-04e68af71cf3).

Descent at Morwell Power Station, raw timber-framed print (in-situ_6273effa-c054-4cc2-a2c6-3a6f96646f0b).

Descent at Morwell Power Station, glass print (in-situ_a7c84943-1033-4d50-ac45-bda8bd0531e6).

01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title: Descent
Series: Morwell Power Station
Catalogue: MPS-013
Process: Giclée
Captured: 30 March 2017
Camera: NIKON D810
Lens: 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Aperture: f/8.0
Shutter: 3s s
ISO: 100
Focal length: 14 mm
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm
Paper size: 297 × 210 mm
Location: Morwell, Victoria, Australia
Authenticity: C2PA verified provenance →
Recognised by: Highly Commended in Multimedia at the 2016 National Trust of Australia (NSW) Heritage Awards

02 LOCATION

Morwell, Victoria, Australia

Map · Mapbox · OpenStreetMap

03 THE STORY

About this print

Yellow safety railings form a crisscross grid across stacked grated platforms, rising through the interior of Morwell Power Station and Briquette Factories toward a ceiling of structural beams and exposed conduits. A central metal staircase connects each level, its surfaces heavily corroded. The platforms read as one tall shaft of steelwork, the railings repeating level over level, with painted markings worn to near nothing across the grating.

This multi-level steelwork ran the briquette process, part of the only remaining intact assemblage of mid-twentieth-century briquetting machinery in Victoria, with its wet sections, hammer mills, shaker screens, conveyor cascades, raw coal bunkers and storage sheds stacked through the factory. The presses were supplied by Maschinenfabrik Buckau R. Wolf A.G. of Germany under the 1950 contract, for two factories rated at 2,100 tons per day. Briquette flow ran continuously through these multi-level factories until the 2014 closure. Brett photographed the staircase and platforms on 30 March 2017, in the closed briquette factory before the demolition program began.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

A steel grate staircase climbs steeply between levels inside the boiler house. Yellow safety railings run parallel on both sides, their paint blistered and flaking to bare metal beneath. Grated walkways cross at each landing. Pipes, ducts and heavy mechanical equipment crowd the periphery. The air looks thick with dust and the faint grey of soot deposits on every surface. Overhead, blackened concrete disappears into shadow.

Brett Patman

The series

Morwell Power Station

79 photographs

Morwell Power Station and Briquette Factories was a brown coal power station and briquette works at Morwell in the Latrobe Valley, built by the State Electricity Commission of Victoria from 1949 and run from 1958 to 2014. It was the centrepiece of the state's postwar plan to reduce Victoria's reliance on black coal from New South Wales. The station had eight Mitchell Engineering boilers and five generating sets, 170 MW in all, with coal conveyed in from the west and split between the power station and the two briquette factories.

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.