Public Weigh Bridge

Provenance

Camera: NIKON D750
Lens: 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8
Settings: 24mm · f/5.0 · 1/640 · ISO 100
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

'PUBLIC WEIGH-BRIDGE 78' runs across a low building at Lidcombe, with 'PARRAMATTA ROAD LIDCOMBE' painted below the number. Red shipping containers stack behind it, beneath an 'AR PLASTIC PERSPEX' sign, and a metal lattice tower rises to the left. Two people move along the footpath in the foreground, part of the plastics and weighbridge businesses that sit layered together along this stretch of the corridor.

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.

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In situ

Public Weigh Bridge at Parramatta Road, black-framed print displayed in situ on a wall.

Public Weigh Bridge at Parramatta Road, raw timber-framed print displayed in situ on a wall.

Public Weigh Bridge at Parramatta Road, glass print displayed in situ on a wall.

01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title: Public Weigh Bridge
Series: Parramatta Road
Catalogue: PRO-014
Process: Giclée
Captured: 4 September 2016
Camera: NIKON D750
Lens: 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8
Aperture: f/5.0
Shutter: 1/640 s
ISO: 100
Focal length: 24 mm
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm
Paper size: 297 × 210 mm
Location: Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Authenticity: C2PA verified provenance →
Recognised by: Highly Commended in Multimedia at the 2016 National Trust of Australia (NSW) Heritage Awards

02 LOCATION

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Map · Mapbox · OpenStreetMap

03 THE STORY

About this print

A public weigh bridge stands at 78 Parramatta Road, Lidcombe, its concrete platform weathered and its mechanism rusted. The plate sits flush with the surface around it, the way a weighbridge has to, and the structure alongside carries what is left of the weighing gear. The photograph was made in the afternoon of 4 September 2016.

A weighbridge like this one recorded the loaded weight of trucks moving along Parramatta Road, which has been Sydney's western highway since the colonial era. The road carried freight long before it carried commuters. A stage cart service began in 1814 at ten shillings a passenger and threepence a letter, the first stagecoach was imported in 1821, and by 1822 the route ran 15 miles and crossed 37 bridges. Sealing and widening through the 1920s and 1930s turned it into a truck road, and the Main Roads Act of 1924 brought it under a single state authority from 1925. The M4 opened in 1986 and took the through freight with it, which is roughly when a weighbridge on the surface road stopped earning its keep.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

Lidcombe, on Parramatta Road. A public weigh-bridge site sits behind pale blue fencing and lattice metalwork. Shipping containers stacked two high carry signage for a plastics supplier. A steel lattice tower rises above the low roofline. The concrete road surface is cracked and patched, lane markings worn to faint traces. Flat midday light. A figure walks past the gate carrying a bag. Nobody stops.

Brett Patman

The series

Parramatta Road

2017 · 27 photographs

Parramatta Road follows a much older route, used for thousands of years by the Wangal, Wallumedegal, Burramattagal, and Cadigal peoples before colonial adoption around 1789 to 1791. Today it is one of Sydney's main thoroughfares: 23 km of heavy traffic, with used car dealers at the Parramatta end ("Auto Alley") and a mix of historic shopfronts, new apartment blocks, and WestConnex demolition at the eastern end. The series moves between streetscape and individual buildings - 107 Parramatta Road in Annandale (an 1890s Victorian Filigree shopfront with original living quarters above accessible only by ladder), the Marco Polo Motel at Summer Hill, the Olympia Milk Bar in Stanmore, Mario's Meat Market, and shopfronts whose ground floors have been busy for a century while the rooms above have been empty for fifty years.

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.