Stairs

1 review

Provenance

Camera: NIKON D810
Lens: 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Settings: 14mm · f/6.3 · 1/50 · ISO 1250
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

A wooden staircase ascends toward dim light in an abandoned structure at Waratah Park, Duffys Forest. The timber is grey and deeply splintered. Each tread carries a uniform layer of dust. No fittings or handrail hardware are visible. The surrounding structure is unlit.

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

Stairs at Waratah Park, black-framed print displayed in situ on a wall.

Stairs at Waratah Park, raw timber-framed print displayed in situ on a wall.

Stairs at Waratah Park, glass print displayed in situ on a wall.

01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title: Stairs
Series: Waratah Park
Catalogue: WPA-018
Process: Giclée
Captured: 2 January 2017
Camera: NIKON D810
Lens: 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Aperture: f/6.3
Shutter: 1/50 s
ISO: 1250
Focal length: 14 mm
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm
Paper size: 290 × 200 mm
Location: Duffys Forest, 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

Duffys Forest, New South Wales, Australia

Map · Mapbox · OpenStreetMap

03 THE STORY

About this print

The staircase is timber, grey and splintered, each tread settled under a layer of dust. It climbs toward dim light inside one of the structures that made up the tourism-era complex at Waratah Park, Duffys Forest. Nothing about it is decorative. It was a working staircase in a working building, and it has been standing idle long enough for the grain to open and the dust to accumulate undisturbed. Waratah Park occupies 12.6 hectares of bushland at 13 Namba Road, Duffys Forest, adjoining Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park to the north and west. The NSW Government granted permission to occupy approximately 10 hectares of Crown land on the site in the late 1960s for a television production. Fauna Productions, formed by Lee Robinson, John McCallum, and Lionel Austin, built the Ranger Headquarters there in 1967 and spent two years filming Skippy the Bush Kangaroo across 91 episodes. The series was eventually broadcast in 128 countries and dubbed into 25 languages. Production wound up in September 1969. Warringah Council granted land use access for a wildlife park in December that year, and Waratah Park opened to the public in January 1970. Kangaroos, koalas, dingoes, emus, and wombats were on display. Visitors could walk through the Ranger Headquarters and see the original TV set inside. The park continued under successive operators, including Waratah Park Pty Ltd from 1976 and Waratah Park Earth Sanctuary from 1995, before the business failed in 2006. The structures built for tourism, the gatehouse, the undercover areas, the service buildings, were not part of the original 1967 construction and are not considered State-significant. They are what remained after the wildlife was removed and the gates closed. Waratah Park was listed on the NSW State Heritage Register on 27 February 2015, with the Ranger Headquarters and its original TV set recognised as the significant elements. The land itself was transferred to the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council in August 2014. This photograph was made in 2017. The staircase had been standing without use for over a decade. The dust on each tread records that stillness precisely.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

A timber staircase inside one of the tourism-era buildings at Waratah Park, Duffys Forest. The treads are grey and splintered, each one covered in a settled layer of dust. The wildlife park operated on this 12.6-hectare Crown land site from January 1970 until the business failed in 2006. Before that, from 1967 to 1969, the same land served as the filming location for Skippy the Bush Kangaroo. The Ranger Headquarters built for that production still stands. This staircase is in one of the other structures: part of the tourism infrastructure that outlasted the cameras by decades.

Brett Patman

The series

Waratah Park

2017 · 24 photographs

Waratah Park sits on 13 hectares at the top of Cowan Creek, adjoining Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. Between 1967 and 1969 it was the filming location for Skippy the Bush Kangaroo. 91 episodes were produced; the role of Skippy was played by between 9 and 15 different Eastern Grey Kangaroos. The series became Australia's first international television export, sold to the UK, Germany, Norway, the United States, and as Skippy le Kangourou in French Canada. After the Skippy production, the site operated as a wildlife tourist park until April 2007. The Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council and the Duffys Forest Residents Association are now working to restore the bushland and the Ranger Headquarters film set.

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.