Ash Handling Tower at White Bay Power Station, two steel hoppers sit elevated on a rusted framework beside the main turbine.
Ash Handling Tower at White Bay Power Station, two steel hoppers sit elevated on a rusted framework beside the main turbine.

Ash Handling Tower

Provenance

Camera
NIKON D810
Lens
14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Settings
14mm · f/8.0 · 1/200 · ISO 320
Paper
Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

This massive ash handling tower stands within the derelict White Bay Power Station. Its intricate network of chutes and conveyors once managed coal ash, now a skeletal structure against the sky, slowly succumbing to time.

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
Size
Type
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.
See certificate sample →

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In situ

Ash Handling Tower at White Bay Power Station, two steel hoppers sit elevated on a rusted framework beside the main turbine.Ash Handling Tower at White Bay Power Station, two steel hoppers sit elevated on a rusted framework beside the main turbine.Ash Handling Tower at White Bay Power Station, two steel hoppers sit elevated on a rusted framework beside the main turbine.Ash Handling Tower at White Bay Power Station, two steel hoppers sit elevated on a rusted framework beside the main turbine.Ash Handling Tower at White Bay Power Station, two steel hoppers sit elevated on a rusted framework beside the main turbine.
01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title
Ash Handling Tower
Series
White Bay Power Station
Catalogue
WBP-120
Process
Giclée
Captured
24 February 2017
Camera
NIKON D810
Lens
14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Aperture
f/8.0
Shutter
1/200 s
ISO
320
Focal length
14 mm
Paper
Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm
Paper size
290 × 200 mm
Location
Rozelle, New South Wales, Australia
Authenticity
C2PA verified provenance →
Recognised by
Highly Commended in Multimedia at the 2016 National Trust of Australia (NSW) Heritage Awards
03 THE STORY

About this print

The ash handling tower at White Bay Power Station rises beside the boiler house, a steel-framed structure carrying the conveyors and hoppers that moved fly ash and bottom ash from the boilers to the disposal area. The tower is clad in corrugated steel, painted dark, weathered to a near-black tone along the prevailing wind side. Access stairs run up the outside of the tower in switchbacks; the conveyor housings step up the inside face. At the top, the hoppers discharged ash into trucks waiting on the apron below. The cladding has failed in places, exposing the structural steel underneath.

Coal-fired power stations of White Bay's era produced large volumes of ash continuously while operating: fly ash carried by the flue gases through the precipitators and collected at the bag filters, and bottom ash falling out of the firing chambers into the basement hoppers. The handling system moved that ash continuously through every operating shift. White Bay's ash tower handled the residue of three build phases of boiler installation across the plant's working life from 1917 to Christmas Day 1983. After closure the system was shut down. The tower has stood since.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

Two steel hoppers sit elevated on a rusted framework beside the main turbine hall. Their conical bases taper to discharge points several metres above ground level. A coal conveyor bridge extends overhead, its corrugated cladding oxidised to deep orange. The brick wall of the boiler house rises four storeys to the left, glass panes missing or clouded. Rail tracks run beneath the structure, set flush into concrete. Overcast light flattens the colour of everything except the rust.

Brett Patman

White Bay Power Station

The series

White Bay Power Station

2015–2018 · 124 photographs

Bricklayers laid 3.7 million bricks at White Bay across three and a quarter years of Phase 1 construction, on Wanngal Country at the western edge of Rozelle. The New South Wales Government Railways ran the build through its own Construction Department. By 3 July 1913, boilers and alternators were running before the buildings that housed them were complete.

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.

Anatomy · true ratio
07 MORE FROM WHITE BAY POWER STATION

123 other prints in this series

All prints
Control Room at White Bay Power Station, a curved control console wraps across the room in a wide arc.
Control Room $100.00
Turbine Hall at White Bay Power Station, reinforced concrete walls rise three storeys on each side, their surfaces stained.
Turbine Hall $100.00
Glass Curtain at White Bay Power Station, a towering mosaic of glass and steel, where light filters through dust-streaked.
Glass Curtain $100.00
Turbine and Condenser at White Bay Power Station, a steam turbine and its condenser sit on the operating floor of White Bay.
Turbine and Condenser $100.00
08 BY POST · NO SPAM

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