Telegraph And Telephone Office

Provenance

Camera: NIKON Z 7
Lens: 180.0-400.0 mm f/4.0
Settings: 240mm · f/8.0 · 1/320 · ISO 100
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

The sign above the entrance reads Telegraph and Post Office, its painted letters still legible against the weathered timber facade. Rectangular skylights break the rusted iron roof at regular intervals, and a small green tree grows directly in front, close enough to brush the lower boards. On the far left the structure is raised on wooden stilts above the slope, with a utility pole and transformer to the right.

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

Telegraph And Telephone Office at The Woolshed, black-framed print displayed in situ on a wall.

Telegraph And Telephone Office at The Woolshed, raw timber-framed print displayed in situ on a wall.

Telegraph And Telephone Office at The Woolshed, glass print displayed in situ on a wall.

01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title: Telegraph And Telephone Office
Series: The Woolshed
Catalogue: TWS-015
Process: Giclée
Captured: 27 December 2018
Camera: NIKON Z 7
Lens: 180.0-400.0 mm f/4.0
Aperture: f/8.0
Shutter: 1/320 s
ISO: 100
Focal length: 240 mm
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm
Paper size: 297 × 210 mm
Location: Various, 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

Various, New South Wales, Australia

Map · Mapbox · OpenStreetMap

03 THE STORY

About this print

The Telegraph and Telephone Office is a small weatherboard building set on its own block of country highway, the words TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE OFFICE painted in block capitals across the front. The building is single-room, with a verandah running along the front and gable ends in profile. The paint has faded but the lettering is still clear. The windows are boarded over with corrugated iron. A chimney pokes out at the back. The building is on a level patch of grass with a low timber fence surrounding the site.

Country telegraph offices were the public communications infrastructure of pre-radio Australia. They were placed along the main roads and rail lines so that messages could be sent from rural districts to the cities. By the mid-twentieth century, telephones had taken over and most of the smaller offices were closed and either demolished or sold off. A handful of these buildings survived because they were small, well-built, and not in anyone's way. The Telegraph and Telephone Office was photographed in 2018 as part of The Woolshed series, where it sits alongside woolsheds and farm structures rather than its own civic-infrastructure category. The label on the front is still a record of what the building was for.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

A weatherboard building sits low in a clearing, its corrugated iron roof streaked with rust in broad patches of red and grey. A small sign near the roofline reads "Telegraph and Telephone Office." Tussock grass crowds the foreground. A timber power pole stands nearby, insulators still fixed to the crossarm. Snow gums climb the hillside behind, dense and pale-trunked. The light is flat, overcast. Timber cattle yards line up to the right.

Brett Patman

The series

The Woolshed

29 photographs

The Woolshed is a series of photographs of woolsheds, shearers' quarters and other farm buildings, taken in October 2017 and December 2018 from Colac in Victoria to Dalgety, Nimmitabel and Cathcart in New South Wales. Most of them were gabled sheds clad in corrugated iron, some patched with rusted sheets, a few raised on timber posts, several with timber-railed yards beside them. One weatherboard building bore a sign reading Telegraph and Telephone Office.

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.