Ash Handling Tower Lookup at White Bay Power Station, steel beams and concrete walls stack upward in heavy layers.
Ash Handling Tower Lookup at White Bay Power Station, steel beams and concrete walls stack upward in heavy layers.

Ash Handling Tower Lookup

Provenance

Camera
NIKON D810
Lens
14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Settings
14mm · f/8.0 · 1/30 · ISO 100
Paper
Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

The ash handling tower from below, rusted panels and weathered steel open to the sky. Coal combustion left clinker and fine ash as residue; this structure carried that material out of the boilerhouse as part of the coal-to-power cycle. The station burned coal from 1917 to 1983.

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.
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In situ

Ash Handling Tower Lookup at White Bay Power Station, steel beams and concrete walls stack upward in heavy layers.Ash Handling Tower Lookup at White Bay Power Station, steel beams and concrete walls stack upward in heavy layers.Ash Handling Tower Lookup at White Bay Power Station, steel beams and concrete walls stack upward in heavy layers.Ash Handling Tower Lookup at White Bay Power Station, steel beams and concrete walls stack upward in heavy layers.Ash Handling Tower Lookup at White Bay Power Station, steel beams and concrete walls stack upward in heavy layers.
01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title
Ash Handling Tower Lookup
Series
White Bay Power Station
Catalogue
WBP-094
Process
Giclée
Captured
27 May 2016
Camera
NIKON D810
Lens
14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Aperture
f/8.0
Shutter
1/30 s
ISO
100
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
02 LOCATION

Rozelle, New South Wales, Australia

Map · Mapbox · OpenStreetMap

03 THE STORY

About this print

Looking up the inside of the ash handling tower at White Bay Power Station, the framework rises through several storeys of structural steel to the upper conveyor level above. The view from the base looks straight up into the tower, with the conveyor housings stacked against one wall, the access stairs switching back through the central well, and the cladding panels visible from the inside as a darker outer envelope. Daylight filters through where panels of the cladding have come away. The structural steel is darkened from decades of ash dust accumulating on every horizontal surface.

The ash handling tower was one of the dirtier working areas at the plant: fine ash dust was carried on the conveyors and the air currents inside the tower, settling on every surface across decades of operation. Operators avoided the tower except for required inspection rounds. The system ran continuously while the plant was firing, from the 1917 opening to the Christmas Day 1983 closure. After closure the tower was shut down. The dust has had over forty years to settle. The view up into the tower is one of the more vertical perspectives the building offers.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

Steel beams and concrete walls stack upward in heavy layers. Riveted girders cross at angles beneath a corrugated iron roof, its panels streaked orange with rust. Translucent skylights puncture the roofline. A winch mechanism sits at the top of the structure, its drum and motor housing seized in place. Flat steel plates, pipe fittings, and diagonal bracing fill the gaps between levels. The light is hard and warm against a clear sky.

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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