All fired up



Side view of the Switch House with the Boiler House behind & red brick 1948 Control Room

The White Bay Power Station was built by N.S.W. Rail to provide power for Sydney's growing tram and electrified rail network, carved out of former residential land in Rozelle and reclaimed tidal flats of the Whites Creek estuary (chosen as it provided water for the turbines, and easy access to the harbour).
The 3.4 hectare site is approximately 150 metres long by 70 metres wide with a number of buildings and wings constructed in the Federation Anglo-Dutch architectural style, and two 60 metre tall chimney towers.


The 1950s Boiler House and the Turbine House

The coal-fired power station was constructed in two stages. The first stage, built between 1912 and 1917, consisted of a boiler house, and part of the turbine hall and switch house. The second stage, which commenced in 1925, saw the completion of the turbine hall and switch house.
Between 1950 and 1958, the first boiler house was demolished and replaced in two stages with the present boiler house.



The coal elevator attached to the Boiler House

 In 1953 the newly created Electricity Commission of N.S.W. took over control from the Railways. By the 1970s, demand for power from White Bay had diminished to such an extent that the second boiler house was pulled down and the turbines sold. The power station was decommissioned on 25 December 1983, but retained for emergencies, its last operational use was during the power crisis in 1984.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the power station was gradually stripped with the majority of the machinery removed, except for items identified for heritage conservation, now a massive industrial relic.

In August 2000, Pacific Power sold the White Bay Power Station to the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority. A number of proposals for its future have been put forward, but the ultimate fate of the heritage-listed site remains uncertain.
I was unable to enter the site, but the YouTube clip below gives a good view of the interior, machinery, coupled with commentary from the ex-workers.

The derelict site has been used by photographers, and in a number of movie and tv productions - The Matrix reloaded, Red planet and in Water Rats. 


Nature is taking over the Turbine House castellated parapets

Mouro to the max

Just browsing photos on the Net, and came across this one of the Mouro lighthouse by Max Billder on Pixdaus.

The Mouro Island Lighthouse or ‘Isla de Mouro’ Lighthouse is located on the island of Mouro at the entrance to the Bay of Santander, in Cantabria, northern Spain.

Built in 1860, the unpainted conical stone tower with lantern room and gallery rises from the centre of a circular single-storey stone keeper's house, an additional dwelling house is attached. It is 39 metres above sea-level and the tower is 20 metres high (do your own math on the height of the waves).

This highly exposed lighthouse was a dangerous assignment for its keepers (one was drowned by a great wave in 1865). In February 1996, a severe storm swept over the tower and extinguished the light. The original lantern was removed around 1990. In 2003-04, the lighthouse was restored and in April 2004, a new lantern installed by helicopter. The island is a restricted nature reserve only accessible by boat, with the site and tower closed.

I searched further and came across other dramatic shots on Flickr.

"Power of the storm II"

Rafael G. Riancho's wonderfully dramatic colour photograph of the lighthouse among the airborne spume of the waves. You can follow the link to Rafael's Flickr page to see the rest of this series, even the aftermath ones are spectacular as you see the wind-blown water cascading off the parapets.
Pablo Higera's stark black and white one speaks of storms and shipwrecks.

"Waves on the lighthouse"

And finally a peaceful scene of the island and silhouetted lighthouse at dawn, by Jamie Juan.

"Momento 1"

All in time for International Lighthouse Weekend 18^th and 19^th August.

Enduring photographs

'Hidden Alcatraz : the fortress revealed' is edited by Steve Fritz and Deborah Roundtree, foreword by Peter Coyote, introduction by John Martini, and afterword by Thom Sempere.

The cover image - approaching Alcatraz island

Alcatraz - infamous for its legendary inmates - is much more than its grim history.
The book focuses on the current state of the island fortress, presenting a unique collection of nearly 100 images taken over a four-year period by 34 photographers, some of whom stayed overnight in the main cell-block.
The photographs highlight the eerie, almost supernatural mood of the former prison, bringing texture to its historical artifacts and architecture and evoking the extreme isolation and despair of inmates, whose only remaining traces are scratches and graffiti on the walls - beauty in decay.
The collection is both beautiful and haunting. It captures the unique mood of this small but fabled rock anchored off San Francisco.

The Golden Gate Bridge from Alcatraz

Although the maximum security U.S. penitentiary closed in 1963, the name still conjures Hollywood-fueled images of the ghostly, fog-shrouded island squatting in the wind-swept waters of San Francisco Bay and hardened convicts behind barred widows plotting an escape.
The colour and monochrome images offer a photographic autopsy of the prison's rotting remains. Most of the small island of Alcatraz was given over to the buildings which housed 260 prisoners in cramped, cage-like cells and narrow hallways. Through the chipped paint, rusting metal, and crumbling cement, the despair, loneliness, and severity of life on 'The Rock' remains woefully present.

Images everyone associates with Alcatraz - The Cell Block

The smoke stack

To complement the photographs, the book's introduction offers a brief history of the island (its initial nearly forgotten use as a 19th-century military fort and, later as a stockade). Alcatraz was discovered and named by the Spanish in 1769. The barren rocky sandstone island possessed no vegetation or fresh water. Work began in 1853 as a government instrumentality for a lighthouse and gun-battery fort in a strategic location - the bay of San Francisco for the defence of the American Pacific Coast. The citadel fort was completed in 1859, just prior to the outbreak of the Civil War. In the 1860s it was the destination for military convicts. The gun batteries were removed in 1907, and the citadel razed in 1909 for the construction of the concrete cell blocks, when the island became solely a military prison, until 1933.
In 1934 it began as a Federal  maximum-security civilian penitentiary, up until 1963 when it closed, on the orders of Robert Kennedy, due to increasing operating and maintenance costs (unless you believe the premise of the Alcatraz tv series).
In 1969 native American Indian activists seized the island claiming it as Indian land under the 1868 treaty with the Sioux Nation. They were removed in 1971. National Parks took control of the historic landmark in 1972 and opened it as a tourist attraction in 1973.



The lighthouse with the Bay Bridge behind

On the island is first lighthouse on America's Pacific shores, a light that has guided ships in and out of San Francisco Bay for almost 125 years. It was the first of a series of lighthouses on the West Coast of the United States. The foundations were laid in 1852 and the light went into service on June 1, 1854. A fog bell was installed in 1856 to combat the San Franciso fogs which often obscured the light. In the 1906 earthquake, the lighthouse tower was cracked and a chimney toppled. The present new 84' concrete tower was completed in 1909, and was automated in 1963 when the prison closed. During the Indian seizure of the island, power was cut to Alcatraz including the lighthouse, and a fire destroyed the keeper's and warden's houses. The light is still operational, but not open to the public.

Alcatraz continues to fascinate, and this photographic collection beautifully captures its physical decay.

The view from the Warden's window