in Queenstown

I’ve spent the last couple of days doing a scoping study of the work that I want to do with the Linhof 5×4 over the next few days, as well as photographing bits and pieces with the Rolleiflex SL66. I’m annoyed.

The backup body of the latter has now gone and I’m down to the Rolleiflex TLR. The 5×4 Linhof becomes my main camera and the Rolleiflex TLR becomes the ancillary camera. I’m out of my comfort zone.

I have found three sites to work at with the Linhof. One is an area around the old Iron Blow Mine. The second is the burnt landscape around the Queenstown airport; burnt because it has had fire through it recently. The third is the ruins of the Tasmanian Smelters site at Zeehan.

slag heap, Zeehan

I know very little about the history of the Zeehan site. I know that in late 1882, silver-lead ore was discovered near the present day site of Zeehan and that this led to the largest mining boom on Tasmania’s west coast with Zeehan being dubbed the ‘Silver City of the West’.