Hong Kong Grocery

As I mentioned in the previous post I rarely work in the street photography tradition. I don’t have the skills and it is difficult to do this kind of photography whilst walking the poodles. On the rare occasions that I do so I generally hang out around Chinatown.

Gouger Street

Chinatown is very small in Adelaide, but it has been given a new lease of life with the flow of international students into Adelaide. Suddenly, this area has come alive with people going about their daily business.

urbanscape

One of my great frustrations on the poodle walks is the lack of accessible locations that give a view of the limited urban skyline in Adelaide. With the roofs of the corporate and public buildings are closed off with security in the lobby. That pretty much leaves the car parks.

one way

Though these are accessible most have fences around the edges to prevent people from jumping off them and committing suicide. Those with fences and with open rooftops are few and far between and of these, few have interesting urban views.

I’m not a street photographer working in the classical tradition—such as Sean O’Brien or Jonathan van Smit or Rui Palha on Flickr—as I just do not have those skills.

two pillows

One of the oft visited weekend locations for our poodles walks when we are in Adelaide is the Young Street Car Park. There are more and more car parks being built in the CBD at a time when the state government’s public policy is aimed at allowing for greater use of public transport, more walking and cycling in the CBD.

However, they are not prepared to roll back the car. The car rules our cities. It chokes them–it’s what town planners called congestion. Inside the spaces designed to park cars in the CBD we find waste:

two pillows

We visit the Young Street Car Park less now because it is being extended, and the upper story has been closed off by the builders. My reason for exploring the car park is because it opens a little door on the underside of the city that sees itself as the Athens of the South–an enlightened city.

homeless

The poodles found this little alleyway in John St in the CBD of Adelaide. I had walked by, even though it is just around the corner from our inner-city townhouse. You see differently when walking the streets with poodles.

The picture indicates how homelessness for mostly single and aboriginal people in Adelaide is hidden and that requests for immediate accommodation cannot be met by homelessness agencies.

Mattress+ CD

This rough sleeping indicates that access to safe and secure housing is not accepted as a basic human rights and the steady decline of social or public housing in spite of the political rhetoric on the issue.