Control Room Wiring

Provenance

Camera: NIKON D7000
Lens: 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Settings: 21mm · f/8.0 · 20s · ISO 100
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

A dense network of wires fills the control room at White Bay Power Station. Tangled cables emerge from conduits, remnants of a facility that powered Sydney from 1917 until 1983. Dust coats the silent panels.

Edition

Open edition

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Printed to order, no fixed quantity. Each print is hand-signed by the photographer.

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A fixed number of prints exist. Once sold, the edition closes permanently. Each print is individually numbered and signed.

$100.00 AUD

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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: Control Room Wiring
Series: White Bay Power Station
Catalogue: WBP-041
Process: Giclée
Captured: 13 November 2015
Camera: NIKON D7000
Lens: 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Aperture: f/8.0
Shutter: 20s s
ISO: 100
Focal length: 21 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

The wiring at the back of one of the control panels at White Bay Power Station shows the construction of the plant's electrical control system as it was built. Heavy cable runs sweep from terminal blocks to terminal blocks across the back of the panel in bundles fixed with cable cleats. Each cable is labelled at its termination with a small brass tag identifying the circuit and the destination. The terminals themselves are heavy brass blocks, the soldered joints intact from the original installation. Cable colours follow the standard British post-war wiring code: red for line, black for neutral, green for earth, yellow for signal. The work is hand-done and meticulous.

Control panel wiring of this kind was the unseen counterpart to the visible switchboards, gauges, and meters on the front face. Every reading on a gauge, every position of a switch, every running lamp on the panel was connected to its source somewhere out in the plant by wiring like this. White Bay's control system was installed in stages across the plant's three build phases, with the original 1917 wiring still in place behind panels that have not been updated since. The plant closed on Christmas Day 1983. The wiring is the original work of the electricians who installed the plant.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

The rear of the White Bay Power Station Control Room panel reveals an intricate network of wiring, methodically routed across timber backing.

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.