Rodney Campbell's Blog

I’d shot at the bunkers at the northern end of Malabar before (you actually get to them from South Maroubra), but there were also some bunkers here at the southern end of Malabar near Long Bay. After our sunrise session on the cliff tops we made a choice to go in search of the bunkers instead of going down the gorge to the rocks at sea level (plus the swell looked pretty ferocious down there and I could easily see us being unceremoniously swept out to sea).

We were looking for this multi storey bunker but instead found a smaller one with the gun emplacement circle in front of it. Surprisingly the doors to the underground were open so we went exploring and eventually came across some pretty interesting tunnels which eventually led to an abandoned rail line cut into a deep trench across the coastline (presumably to cart ammunitions back and forth between the installations). Following the trainline we eventually came to the large three storey bunker and went exploring inside. As with all these bunkers it’s covered inside and out with graffiti and littered with debris.

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger – so click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer.

Outside Gerry and I set about to try some daytime long exposures with the ten stop ND’s (in my case also stacked with a 3 stop ND and a polariser). The clouds weren’t moving in the right direction for our first couple exposures so going ultra wide and cramming ourselves into a small open pocket on this side revealed something more like we were after

The Bunker

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 213 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Going back inside we set about taking some HDR brackets in the various stairways and rooms for later processing. I used the fisheye for some dramatic wide distorted views

The view from the top of the stairs looking down

Bunker Art

NIKON D600 + 15.0 mm f/2.8 @ 15 mm, 1.30 sec at f/11, ISO 100

The following two framed by feel (couldn’t get behind the camera to look so just placed the tripod, angled the camera and prayed :))

This one with the camera placed in the corner of the turn of stairs looking a little forward and up

Bunker Stairs

NIKON D600 + 15.0 mm f/2.8 @ 15 mm, 10.00 sec at f/8, ISO 100

This one taken against the wall, halfway down the lowest set of stairs leading underground and looking up. It was incredibly dark down at the bottom of the bunker so I used my torch to do a little light painting on the underside of the stairs and on the wall to the right during all the bracketed exposures

Bunkering Up

NIKON D600 + 15.0 mm f/2.8 @ 15 mm, 2.50 sec at f/5.6, ISO 200

Finally – intentionally took the processing of this one over the top 🙂 – this is the room at the top of the bunker – a cornucopia of colour and madness

Vomit Induction

NIKON D600 + 15.0 mm f/2.8 @ 15 mm, 1 sec at f/11, ISO 100

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