WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge – Weathered
This week the theme for the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge is ‘weathered’. I have selected two photos of weathering steel to represent this theme.
The first photo is the last part of the sculpture ‘Wide Brown Land’.
- Sculpture by Marcus Tatton and Chris Viney (2010), National Aboretum
The sculpture was inspired by Dorothea Mackellar’s famous poem, ‘My Country’, in which she declared her love for her ‘wide brown land’ of Australia. The sculpture is made from CORTEN steel, which is, apparently, a ‘weathering’ steel.
According to Wikipedia (and it would know), ‘weathering’ refers to the chemical composition of a particular type of steel that improves its resistance to atmospheric corrosion compared to other steels. “The layer protecting the surface [of the steel] develops and regenerates continuously when subjected to the influence of the weather. In other words, the steel is allowed to rust in order to form the protective coating.” Let me get this straight – to protect the steel from deteriorating, you introduce a chemical process that causes it to rust through weathering!
My next photo is of a rusting boiler, the last remnants of the SS Monaro, washed ashore at Bingi Point. Long before fancy coatings were applied to protect it from deterioration, steel weathered the old-fashioned way. Ultimately, unprotected steel may weather completely away.
Reflections of An Untidy Mind 
Excellent choices – loved the sculpture
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Thank you. They seemed to fit 🙂
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Oh! I love these pics! Amazing sculpture!
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I love the sculpture too. The form of the sculpture is based on Dorothea Mackellar’s own handwriting. Some people are really clever.
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I love that poem and the concept of the sculpture!
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Dorothea mackellars poem is so steeped in emotion for her love of Australia I love it.and that sculpture of wide brown land is awe inspiring in its size. I never knew about the chemical coating though. Good old google, the know it all guru…
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Haha, yes. I didn’t know about the coating either until I googled the sculpture. I thought I was just going to post a photo, and then all of a sudden, I had a whole story. I love your photos by the way.
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Google is amazing we didn’t know the resources we were missing way back when I was at school
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love the sculpture. Love the textures in the boiler but hope everyone made it ashore in time even if the ship didn’t
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Everyone was rescued. Thankfully.
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