Large Format Photography Australia

Windmill Wrangler, Blackall.
Gelatin-silver photograph on Agfa Classic VC FB photographic paper, image size 21.5cm X 16.3cm, from a 4x5 Kodak Tri-X negative exposed in a Linhof Master Technika camera fitted with a Schneider Symmar-S 150mm f5.6 lens.

The work of the windmill wrangler is lonely, dangerous, and essential in an area dependent on sub-artesian water. This man rejects all assistants as being more a danger to themselves than actually useful.

Love windmills, looks like a 9m tower version, which a lot of Comet windmills used. High enough to get above the scrub, but not really high enough if there was a stand of trees nearby.

Nice composition, including one of the pump yard posts in the foreground works for me. Gotta keep stock away from the tower, a big bull with an itch, can, over time, make them lean a bit.

What happened to the vanes?

The wrangler has taken the old vanes off but the replacements haven't arrived. "Next coupla days" he reckons. The water table here is a deep and the pump rod only has a stroke of about 10cm. About half a cup of water per stroke but enough over time to fill a farm dam. Or so I was assured.