White Bay Power Station…
by Rodney Campbell on May.28, 2011, under Life, Photography
Over the weekend White Bay Power Station had some open days including one day set aside for photographers (tripods allowed).
White Bay Power Station at Rozelle, in Sydney’s inner west is a heritage listed former coal-fired power station and was the longest serving of the city’s five metropolitan power stations. Construction began in 1913, and went through a number of expansions before the station was de-commissioned in 1983.
My daughter and some friends and I braved the crowds of other photographers late in the day and we spent about an hour exploring some of the site and taking some images.
I knew before going that the dark interior and gritty machinery and building structure would lend itself perfectly to some HDR treatment so I planned to bracket many of my shots with that in mind.
Even late in the day (3 to 4PM) the softer sunlight streaming in the very high windows created bright highlights up in the vaulted ceiling but didn’t do anything to pierce the darkness at ground level – life was very interesting when shooting with the ultra wide as the dynamic range from absolute white above to absolute darkness below was “challenging”. Where the machinery was in the Boiler House was in near total darkness – the “normal” shot even with my 8mm ultrawide at f/5.6 was 4 seconds or more.
We spent all of our limited time inside and just outside the Boiler House (we didn’t arrive early enough to get in a long queue for the Turbine Hall).
All of the following images start life as a High Dynamic Range (HDR) image created from at least three bracketed images shot at -2, 0 and +2EV (Grey and Gold also included a fourth image at -4EV).
This first is the view straight up on the taller window lit side of the Boiler House
Channel Up
NIKON D7000 + 8.0-16.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 8 mm, 1/3 sec at f / 11, ISO 100
Industrie
NIKON D7000 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 19 mm, 1.3 sec at f / 11, ISO 100
Grey and Gold
NIKON D7000 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 20 mm, 2 sec at f / 11, ISO 100
Just outside the boiler house are two huge stacks tethered to the building – the blue sky and moody wispy clouds were crying out for a monochrome treatment
Sky Stack
NIKON D7000 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 17 mm, 1/125 sec at f / 9.0, ISO 100
-
Hi! Welcome to Rodney Campbell's Blog!
Thanks for dropping by! Feel free to join the discussion by leaving comments, and stay updated by subscribing to the RSS feed. See ya around!
Follow Me!
September 20th, 2011 on 8:59 am
I really like your blog, even more so your shots, do you really take them yourself? Here in France we’ve been blessed with a huge variety of flowers, the most impressive of which are in all likelihood the early spring flora. Am I Allowed To use a few of the photos for my personal blogging site? I will back link any back to here naturally. Anna Ruis
March 12th, 2012 on 5:10 pm
Hi i think your photographs are amazing! I am a design student and i am looking at redesigning a section of White Bay Power Station do you have anymore photos of White Bay i could look at to gain further inspiration from?
March 12th, 2012 on 6:13 pm
Hi – thanks Lauren – I’m sure I do but probably not too many more processed images from that day but I can take a look if you like
March 13th, 2012 on 5:09 pm
Thank you so much that would be great
March 28th, 2012 on 8:08 am
hi i’m an architecture student doing an assignment involving the digital redesign of white bay. i love these photos, they really evoke the industrial look of the site i’m using, and i was wondering if there was any way i would be able to access them in a higher resolution? or you would possibly let me use them as part of the portfolio i’m creating? (properly cited obviously)
thanks!
March 29th, 2012 on 6:24 pm
Hi Bianca – no problems – thanks for asking
October 22nd, 2013 on 10:38 pm
Hi Rodney,
Beautiful photography and thankyou for sharing. Just like Bianca I was wondering if I was able to use your photographs for my architectural project. For rendering purpose. A higher resolution would be great if you are able to share. Hope its not too much trouble
Thankyou
Sima