The Porch

Provenance

Camera: NIKON D850
Lens: 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8
Settings: 24mm · f/22.0 · 1/25 · ISO 400
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

Sunlight warms the weathered timber porch of a solitary tin dwelling in Tin City. Peeling paint reveals the history embedded in its structure. Decay slowly reclaims this abandoned coastal outpost.

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 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: The Porch
Series: Tin City
Catalogue: TCI-034
Process: Giclée
Captured: 1 February 2018
Camera: NIKON D850
Lens: 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8
Aperture: f/22.0
Shutter: 1/25 s
ISO: 400
Focal length: 24 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

A small porch runs along the front of one of the Tin City shacks, raised a step above the surrounding sand on a timber platform built up from old beach pallets. Two folding chairs sit on the deck, one wooden and one canvas, both weathered to a soft grey. A length of fishing line is wound around a peg on the wall behind. The porch roof is corrugated iron extending out from the main shack's eave, supported on two driftwood posts at the front. From the porch, the view runs across the sand toward the next shack and out over the dune line.

The porch is where the day at Tin City happens. The shacks themselves are small and used mainly for sleeping and storage; the actual living gets done out in front. Most of the 11 remaining shacks have a porch or veranda of some kind, built from whatever materials were available when it was put together. The settlement faces the prevailing summer breeze off the Pacific, so the porches catch the wind in the afternoon and the sun in the morning. Tin City is on Worimi country at the Stockton Bight; the land was returned to Worimi Local Aboriginal Land Council ownership on 1 February 2007 and leased back to the NSW Government, and the shacks continue under licence.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

A corrugated iron shack sits half-swallowed by sand. The verandah roof sags on thin timber posts, its shade covering nothing but drift. Rust bleeds down the walls in long brown streaks. A television antenna still stands on the roofline. Tarpaulins and debris lie crumpled at the base, partly buried. The sand is smooth and pale in every direction. Overcast sky presses low and grey.

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.