Corrugated iron is a favoured building material in Australia. Award-winning architects such as Glen Murcutt use it, and so do farmers cobbling together sheds and fences. My beloved Broken Hill house was a tinnie, as were many other houses in that mining city. New houses with gleaming corrugations proliferate beachside now, but I’m drawn to old, worn, rusting, multicoloured iron which develops patterns and colours in response to long weathering and random painting.
The iron in this post is used to block off a building site in Moruya.
This is my contribution to Paula’s Thursday’s special: Multicoloured. For other takes on the theme, visit
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snippetsandsnaps 
I love this uniquely Australian contribution to this challenge. Love it!
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Great photos Meg. I was just thinking the other day that I need to post more urbanicity (my word) stuff like rusty objects, peeling paintwork and other signs of decay. I seem to have neglected that part of my photography lately. Thanks for the reminder.
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Looking forward to seeing your take on decay.
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Its very photogenic stuff Meg but doesn’t it get very hot inside?
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My BH house had high ceilings, and it cooled down very quickly – if the weather obliged. I was unregenerate in those days so I also used air conditioning. In winter I had a wood fire. And I was never there from Christmas till early February – we had an extra week’s holiday as a climate allowance.
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You are right that Australian towns had a lot of corrugated iron. Corrugated iron water tanks used to be seen all over the place with differing amounts of rust. Despair when the rust turned to holes. I couldn’t understand why modern houses started using corrugated iron (although colourbond I don’t think is iron but some other compound) due to the heat retention. We used it (colour bond) in our shower recess and it was the easiest shower I’ve ever had to clean. Beat glass hands down. Thanks for bringing back all these memories.
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Will I be forgiven for singing ‘Any old iron, any old iron, any, any, any old iron?’ Meg
An interesting method of recycling 🙂 🙂
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Of course you’re forgiven. I only wish I could hear you singing. This series has been on the bubble for a long time. One of the towns we passed through on the way back from Queensland had a wonderful array of corrugated iron buildings, but we were not ready to stop and prowl. Duly noted, though. There was also a wetlands walk nearby.
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Such an iconic material Meg. Much of Australia’s past was built with this light, enduring, easily transportable, but very unfriendly temperature wise, material. Hot in summer, cold in winter. But an ideal choice for this challenge
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My last passionate love affair was with my little house in Broken Hill. I’ll have to dig out some photos for this series – although my photographic eye was in its infancy then. My photographic mentor gave me three photos, one a dead sunflower against a corrugated iron fence, another a shadow against iron. He was a very good photographer.
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Those photos sound interesting. Were they taken before the digital age?
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Indeed they were. What a thought!
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Ok you now have another project!!!!!!!!!!
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You have a great eye, Meg. It would not occur to just anyone to go around and capture this metal sheets. Different angles and perspectives in this post! Wonderful 🙂
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Thank you. Praise from you is praise indeed. Its photographic charm is its dilapidation. I’m sure there’s an aesthetic theory I could develop – but I’ve got to go to Warsaw!
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