Boiler House Control Room Dials

Provenance

Camera: NIKON D810
Lens: 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Settings: 14mm · f/9.0 · 6s · ISO 800
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

A long bank of analogue control panels lines the boiler house at White Bay Power Station. Cast iron handwheels, gauges, and switches cover every panel. Timber floorboards. A narrow strip of light cuts through from the far end.

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: Boiler House Control Room Dials
Series: White Bay Power Station
Catalogue: WBP-099
Process: Giclée
Captured: 27 May 2016
Camera: NIKON D810
Lens: 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Aperture: f/9.0
Shutter: 6s s
ISO: 800
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

A row of dials at the boiler house control room at White Bay Power Station sits across the front of one of the panels, each dial a circular gauge in a brass-rimmed bezel set into the steel face. The dials are calibrated in the units the operators read: pressure in psi, temperature in degrees Fahrenheit, flow in pounds per hour, level in inches of water. Hand-painted labels above each dial identify the parameter and the boiler the reading came from. The needles sit at their last positions. The brass has darkened with patina. The painted lettering on the labels has worn at the most-read positions but is still legible.

The boiler house dials were the operator's continuous feed of how each boiler was running. White Bay's boilers raised steam at 205 psi and 588 degrees Fahrenheit, and the dials in this photograph reported the working conditions of the firing circuit moment by moment. The plant ran continuously across the working life of the station from 1917 to Christmas Day 1983. After closure the dials were de-energised; the needles fell to whatever rest position the springs and gravity left them. The brass bezels and the labels remain in place on the panel.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

A long corridor of steel control panels lines the boiler house wall. Valve wheels, rotary switches, analogue gauges and selector dials crowd every surface. Pale light enters through narrow windows on the left, throwing low shadows across the concrete floor. Dust sits thick on the panel faces. An open/shut indicator dial near the foreground still points to its last position.

Brett Patman

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.