I had been circling the idea of visiting the old Cement Works in Warkworth for a while. I was drawn to the ruins, the abandoned, the overlooked, the places that no longer serve their original purpose but still remain. A comment from someone in a Facebook group dedicated to abandoned buildings finally tipped me over. You should go see it for yourself, they said.
So I did.
I spent a warm spring afternoon wandering through the Cement Works, camera straps across my shoulders and the sun on my back. It was a slow, gentle walk exactly what I wanted and needed. I just need a reason to get out to try my new acquisitions, just like a child who wants to play with the newly received toy. One camera was my newly acquired Canon 5D Mk1, aka The Classic, paired with the humble 50mm 1.8 STM. The other was my Yashica-A TLR, loaded with a long-expired roll of Kodak black-and-white 400 from 2008. Two very different tools, but well-suited to an unhurried photowalk.
One frame on the Yashica quietly set the tone for how this place wanted to be seen. Rated down to 100 ASA, the expired film carried muted contrast, gentle grain, and shadows that didn’t rush to explain themselves. In black and white, the Cement Works felt stripped back and direct. The weight of concrete, the soot-darkened chimney, and the roughness of aging walls all became more apparent without colour to soften them. Grain settled into cracks and surfaces, reinforcing the sense of a site built for function rather than beauty. The ruins felt quieter in monochrome, less about description and more about memory, and the hint of sepia toned film stock added to the nostalgia of the decay.
The remains of the factory rise like a concrete skeleton arches, walls, and broken foundations softened by vines, grass, and spring light. Once, this site was one of the industrial hearts of the region. Built in the late 1800s, the Warkworth Cement Works supplied material for major building projects across Auckland. For decades, the quarry beside the factory fed furnaces that rarely cooled. Eventually production slowed, and the site was abandoned, left to weather and fold itself back into the landscape.
Most of the ruins are now fenced off, and are the structures too unstable to safely explore. It’s easy to imagine concrete giving way without warning. Another reminder that time works steadily on everything.
Nature, however, has reclaimed the place gently. The quarry that once supplied lime has filled with fresh water and now serves as a swimming spot. Families arrive with picnic blankets. Locals walk their dogs. The site feels calm and repurposed rather than forgotten.
Just beyond the ruins, the Mahurangi River moves quietly past a working boatyard. Every so often, the stillness was broken by the sound of power tools—men sanding and shaping hulls soon to return to the water. It felt like a faint continuation of industry, happening alongside the remains of another era.
But mostly, the afternoon was still.
I slowed down, looked carefully, and framed each shot with intention. The Canon 5D Classic rendered the afternoon in colour blue water in the quarry, green vines climbing concrete, warm sun catching pale stone. The images felt immediate, firmly anchored in the present. The Yashica asked more of me to meter, focus, wait, release. I liked the contrast. It mirrored the place itself: past and present existing side by side, neither cancelling the other out.
Walking among the ruins, I wasn’t chasing a particular image. I was enjoying the act of looking, the rhythm of walking, the luxury of time. The warmth of the day, the light shifting across concrete, the quiet between sounds where everything felt unforced.
Sometimes a photowalk isn’t about chasing a perfect shot. Sometimes it’s about letting the environment set the pace, and just being present long enough to see what it gives you.
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