Pump House at White Bay Power Station, a long corridor runs between painted brick walls inside White Bay Power Station's.
Pump House at White Bay Power Station, a long corridor runs between painted brick walls inside White Bay Power Station's.

Pump House

Provenance

Camera
NIKON D7000
Lens
14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Settings
21mm · f/8.0 · 3s · ISO 100
Paper
Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

The pump house at White Bay Power Station, derelict since 1983, shows its former industrial purpose. Heavy machinery and pipes lie dormant. Rusting metal colours the interior, hinting at past operations.

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

Pump House at White Bay Power Station, a long corridor runs between painted brick walls inside White Bay Power Station's.Pump House at White Bay Power Station, a long corridor runs between painted brick walls inside White Bay Power Station's.Pump House at White Bay Power Station, a long corridor runs between painted brick walls inside White Bay Power Station's.Pump House at White Bay Power Station, a long corridor runs between painted brick walls inside White Bay Power Station's.Pump House at White Bay Power Station, a long corridor runs between painted brick walls inside White Bay Power Station's.
01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title
Pump House
Series
White Bay Power Station
Catalogue
WBP-056
Process
Giclée
Captured
13 November 2015
Camera
NIKON D7000
Lens
14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Aperture
f/8.0
Shutter
3s 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 pump house at White Bay Power Station sits at the seaward end of the plant, the brick-walled building that held the cooling-water circulation pumps lifting harbour water through the condenser system. The interior is a high single volume with the pump bays running along the floor, each pump on its concrete plinth with the discharge piping rising through the ceiling toward the condensers above. The walls are red brick to mid-height with concrete cladding above, broken by tall industrial windows along the seaward face that admitted both light and the working noise of the harbour beyond. Steel walkways at multiple levels access the upper sections of the pumps.

The pump house was where the cooling water for the plant's condensers was lifted from the harbour, with the working pumps each handling hundreds of thousands of litres per minute. Cooling water was the largest single utility load at White Bay, and the pump house ran continuously through every operating shift. The plant ran from 1917 to Christmas Day 1983. After closure the pumps were shut down. Most of the larger pumps came out during the 1990s decontamination; the building, the pipework, the plinths, and several of the smaller pumps remain in place.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

A long corridor runs between painted brick walls inside White Bay Power Station's pump house. Rusted pipework curves from a heavy pump assembly mounted to the left. On the right wall, rows of pressure gauges and valve controls sit bolted to a concrete panel, their faces dulled grey with grime. Broken concrete and bent steel rods jut from the floor in the foreground. Daylight enters from clerestory windows at the far end, falling pale across debris and dust.

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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