Rodney Campbell's Blog

State of Decay…

by on Sep.19, 2014, under Life, Photography

I saw a 360 pano by fellow Sydney photographer Paul Gunther taken down on this absolutely decayed old wooden pier in Berry’s Bay near the Waverton Peninsula Reserve and Balls Head

It was nearing sunset so I figured I’d head down and see what was there and what might happen

It wasn’t a fantastic sunset and this location isn’t particularly ideal for sunset (too many distractions out in the water and the sun sets behind a large headland (the peninsula leading to Balls Head) to the west). I tried to simplify as best I could with some Long Exposures using the Lee LittleStopper stacked with the Lee 0.9 GND

This abandoned jetty at a decommissioned fuel depot requires you to “accidentally” make your way through a fence and it is in a massive state of disrepair. The decay on the wooden piers holding up the structure is so bad that the vast majority of them are completely worn through and there’s no actual connection from the top to the bottom part of the poles below. How the structure is still standing I don’t really know

Still I was here and it “appeared” stable enough when I walked out to the end to check it out

The first shot is looking almost straight down the structure southward towards the Sydney CBD on the other side of Sydney harbour

Wooden Lines

Wooden Lines

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 17 mm, 62 sec at f/11, ISO 50

As sun was setting some colour started to appear out to the west so I moved out to the end of the pier and over towards the end of the left arm so I could shoot down the long part of the pier at the end looking westward

Just after 5:30PM and just a couple minutes to sunset. The sun has already gone down behind the peninsula of land and we’re getting some underlit cloudage moving slowly through the sky. A minute and a half with the LittleStopper and 3 stop GND

Pier Decay

Pier Decay

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 17 mm, 88 sec at f/11, ISO 50

Less than 5 minutes later and just moments after sunset and the light has dropped dramatically – it’s now quite dark out here on the decayed wooden mass – the exposure is now out to 5 minutes

Pure Decay

Pure Decay

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 17 mm, 308 sec at f/11, ISO 50

Ten minutes layer the rain started to fall and it was time to bail


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