Author: poodleadmin

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from a tram

I got tired of the rigors of urban large format photography after a fruitless day hunting for new locations. So I jumped a tram, found myself a window seat, then snapped away through the window as the tram moved through the city.

Monday afternoon

It was liberating. Many of the pictures were no good in terms of composition but others indicated the possibilities of this way of taking photography. I had tried this approach in Canberra on a bus, and in Melbourne on a bus and train but they never really worked. It was hit and miss.

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time

One of the themes that I unconsciously explore in my local neighbourhood is urban nature. Not so much the cultivated nature that is the result of gardening by city councils (shade tree plantings, revegetation projects etc) or individual’s gardens but wild nature.

time

Wild nature in the sense of weeds growing up through the concrete, or brick walls, creeper reclaiming walls–the urban nature that no one really notices. Or they want to eradicate it when they do notice.

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strolling the city

I’ve started walking around the urban neighbourhood that I live in–the south east corner of Adelaide–with a photo eye. It is a digging behind the surface of the functional drudgery of inner city life–what the situationists called dérive: a stroll through the city that includes and interpretive reading of the city, an architectural understanding

units, Vinrace St, Adelaide

Another way to look at the city is in terms of repressed desires–eg., the poverty and alienation of the conditions of everyday life despite the plenty of commodities and the glossy consumer lifestyle on the billboards.

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28A Sturt St

This is our home in Adelaide–it’s the townhouse on the corner. The picture was snapped when I was returning from a walk with the dogs in the parklands. The sun was going down. My office is the top left window in the reddish wall.

28A Sturt St

The creamy orange brick building on the left (going west) is a hockey shop, and then further west an accountants office, then a council carpark that is marked for residential redevelopment. The neighbourhood is in rapid transition as the old warehouses are given up and the lawyers and residents move in.

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boardwalk, Hindmarsh River

The solar photovoltaic electricity system is up and running and I was able to concentrate on doing some photography. This is was the subject that I had in mind for a large format shot, and so I went and checked it out late this afternoon in terms of lighting and composition.

boardwalk, Hindmarsh River

It is a boardwalk along the Hindmarsh River just before it enters the sea at Victor Harbor. So the melaleucas are part of the river’s estuary. I’m standing next to the old railway track. I have room to work in to do either a 5×7 in colour of and an 8×10 in black and white.

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solar panels

This is my reason for being down at Victor Harbor this week–I’m overseeing the installation of photovoltaic solar panels on the roof of the weekender at Victor Harbor. The solar photovoltaic electricity system is costing us an arm and leg re the capital required, as it is a big (2.4kw) system.

The solar panels absorb light and turn that into electricity via a converter that is plugged into a standard ETSA household fuse box that is connected to the national electricity grid. So we are both taking power from the grid and putting power back into the grid.

solar panels

The assumption is that with the feed in tariff means this size solar power plant on our roof will generate more energy than we use, and this will then–hopefully—provide a bit of an income from the weekender through the feed-in-tariff.

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winter

I’m down at Victor Harbor for a couple of days having some photovoltaic solar panels placed on the roof of the weekender. As I had to hang around the house for the tradies I was only able to manage a walk along the cliff tops and beach early this afternoon with the dogs.

seascape, Victor Harbor
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It is winter. Even though the rain had stopped, there was a bitterly cold wind blowing in from the south west and the sea was turbulent. Even so, there were lots of people walking their dogs, or strolling along the cliff tops, and even exploring the little beaches.

I wish that I had used the time to try to include people in the landscape, but my mind was on the tradies and solar panels not photography. The solar panel job would not be finished today. It’s a big job. So habit took over.

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archives

I’ve been going through my Flickr archives looking at my urban photos to see what kind of project lies buried within them. Would there be anything, or are they just a series of casual snaps? My feeling was that they are just a series of casual snaps as I walk through the city.

resting
Gary Sauer-Thompson, Adelaide CBD resting, 2008

This is a good example. It was taken in January 2008–high summer. It was hot that afternoon and it looked to be a good image. So I took a snap with a digital camera. I then just moved on to take another snap as I wandered around the streets camera in hand.

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photographing the urban environment

I have been plugging taking photos of my local urban neighbourhood without giving much thought to what I’m doing apart from thinking that it is something to do with architecture.

I was kinda doing architectural photography intuitively I told myself, but when I actually came to consciously do architectural photography the results, more often than not, were disastrous.

detail, Federal Court building

Then I stumbled upon the newly formed Urban Photo Magazine group on Flickr and I could see people doing similar work to me.

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