Jun 5, 20232 min read

Construction of Aquaculture Gladstone

Updated: Jun 7, 2023

Early in 2021, Gladstone Area Water Board got in touch with us about capturing the construction of their new Fish Hatchery up at Lake Awoonga. The scope involved recording the entire project with a long term timelapse, as well as periodic visits to capture aerial and handheld footage for a promotional video at the end of the project. Aerial photos would be used for monitoring construction progress and project updates.

We first visited the site in March 2021 before earth works began. An appropriate site was located to install one of our long-term time lapse camera systems.

Due to the remote location, the system had to be robust enough to survive hot summer days, severe storms and cold winter mornings without regular maintenance visits. Our time lapse systems consist of a high resolution DSLR camera in a weatherproof housing with its own Wi-Fi network, redundant battery systems and solar charging.

While hundreds of photos were collected every week, it also uploaded several photos a day to a gallery set up on our website. This allowed key stakeholders from GAWB to view up to date images of construction progress without having to travel to site.

It didn’t take long for the landscape to change as concrete slabs were prepped and poured and mammoth steel frames began to appear.

A second time lapse camera was requested during the middle of the project to capture another angle.

After 9mths, the external work was complete and the cameras were demobilised.

The new hatchery location is close to the lookout for the Awoonga Dam spillway. The spillway and the dam itself provided the perfect background for some picturesque drone shots as the project took shape.

A lot of photos don’t make the final time lapse. Some capture beautiful sunrises, sunsets or afternoon storms rolling in. We even caught the odd bird or butterfly. Here are a few of our favourites.