Workshop Entrance

Provenance

Camera: NIKON D7000
Lens: 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Settings: 21mm · f/8.0 · 1.3s · ISO 100
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

The entrance to a former workshop in the turbine hall at White Bay Power Station stands open, while the doorways beside it have been sealed with red brick that cuts across the original concrete and peeling paint. The paint curls back in layers to the bare surface beneath. Rust-stained fixtures and lengths of electrical conduit are all that remain of the services that once ran through here.

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 5 to 10 business days (unframed). Shipped in protective packaging with edition certificate, paper-stock reference and a printed care guide.

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In situ

Workshop Entrance at White Bay Power Station, black-framed print displayed in situ on a wall.

Workshop Entrance at White Bay Power Station, raw timber-framed print displayed in situ on a wall.

Workshop Entrance at White Bay Power Station, glass print displayed in situ on a wall.

01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title: Workshop Entrance
Series: White Bay Power Station
Catalogue: WBP-090
Process: Giclée
Captured: 13 November 2015
Camera: NIKON D7000
Lens: 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Aperture: f/8.0
Shutter: 1.3s s
ISO: 100
Focal length: 21 mm
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm
Paper size: 297 × 210 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 entrance to the workshop at White Bay Power Station is a wide opening in the brick wall facing the main plant yard, framed by a steel-angle lintel and fitted with a double-leaf steel door, each leaf hinged to the frame at three points. The doors are currently tied open with chain and hook, the rust suggesting they have been in this position for some time. The concrete floor at the threshold is worn into a gentle slope where wheeled equipment has been moved in and out over decades. A strip light batten is mounted above the entrance on the interior face. On the wall beside the door a hand-painted sign gives the workshop designation and a safety notice in faded lettering. The threshold step is faced with a steel angle welded to the floor slab.

Workshop entrances at White Bay Power Station were built to allow large equipment to be moved for repair and overhaul. The workshop handled a wide range of maintenance work: valve grinding, pump rebuilds, bearing replacement, and general mechanical fitting. Plant at a station of this scale required continuous maintenance to stay available, and the workshop was a central part of the maintenance operation from the station's opening in 1917 to the Christmas Eve 1983 shutdown. The double-leaf door width at the workshop entrance was determined by the size of the largest components that needed to pass through for overhaul. After closure the workshop entrance was secured during the 1990s decontamination. Heritage listing followed in April 1999.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

A red brick partition sits inside a massive concrete void, its neat coursework cutting a low doorway into the wall behind. Paint peels from every surface in thick, curling sheets, exposing grey render beneath. The space rises two storeys. Concrete piers frame the opening. Debris and dust cover the floor. A bricked-up panel above the doorway blocks what was once a larger opening. Light falls flat and even across the textures.

Brett Patman

The series

White Bay Power Station

124 photographs

White Bay Power Station is a former coal-fired power station on Wanngal Country at Rozelle, at the head of White Bay on Sydney Harbour, built to power Sydney's trams and suburban trains and in service from May 1917 until December 1983. The New South Wales Department of Railways designed it in its own drawing office and began building in June 1912. The turbine hall, boilerhouse, switch house and control room stand on a 38,000 square metre site behind two steel chimney stacks, the main steelwork stamped with British manufacturers' names.

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.