From The Beach

Provenance

Camera: NIKON D850
Lens: 70.0-200.0 mm f/2.8
Settings: 200mm · f/8.0 · 1/200 · ISO 110
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

Weather-beaten corrugated iron shacks of Tin City stand resiliently on the Stockton Bight dunes. Their rudimentary forms reflect a harsh coastal existence, enduring the wind and shifting sands.

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.

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Signed, numbered, with COA. Made to order in 10 to 20 business days (framed). Shipped in protective packaging with edition certificate, paper-stock reference and a printed care guide.

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In situ

01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title: From The Beach
Series: Tin City
Catalogue: TCI-011
Process: Giclée
Captured: 31 January 2018
Camera: NIKON D850
Lens: 70.0-200.0 mm f/2.8
Aperture: f/8.0
Shutter: 1/200 s
ISO: 110
Focal length: 200 mm
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm
Paper size: 290 × 200 mm
Location: Lake Macquarie, 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

Lake Macquarie, New South Wales, Australia

Map · Mapbox · OpenStreetMap

03 THE STORY

About this print

Tin City viewed from the beach at Stockton Bight, the shacks low against the dune line and the sand running away in both directions along the foreshore. The buildings sit on the back of the foredune, raised slightly above the beach but well below the larger dunes that rise behind them. From this angle the settlement reads as a thin line of rooflines and walls, mostly the same height as the dune cover that surrounds it. The beach is unsealed, unmarked, and continuous for kilometres in each direction. The water is at low tide; the wet sand at the tide line is a darker shade than the dry beach above.

The shacks at Tin City are reached from the beach by 4WD up over the foredune or on foot. There is no road and no formal track in. The settlement has been visible from the beach for nearly a century: the first squatter shacks went up in the 1930s, the Army cleared them during World War II, and the rebuilt settlement has held a roughly constant position on this stretch of the dune line since. Beach access in either direction can run uninterrupted for tens of kilometres, with no other built structure between Stockton at Newcastle and Anna Bay at the northern end of the Bight.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

Two corrugated iron structures sit low against the dunes at Tin City, Stockton Beach. The smaller shack on the left is weathered timber and iron, its verandah sagging. Beside it, a larger shed stands taller, its silver cladding still holding shape. Sand pushes up around both buildings. Sparse tufts of grass cling to the foreground. Behind everything, pale dunes rise and fill the horizon under a washed-out sky.

Brett Patman

The series

Tin City

2018 · 37 photographs

Two tin sheds were put up on the Stockton Bight dunes in the late nineteenth century to hold provisions for sailors shipwrecked on the beach. During the Great Depression a group of squatters built a series of shacks around them. The settlement that grew became Tin City, on Worimi country, in the largest mobile coastal sand mass in the Southern Hemisphere.

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.