Tag: shop window

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making the shift to digital

I did an experiment this morning, now that Wednesday has become a gym free day.

I took my Leica M4-P film camera and the digital Sony DSC R1 with me when I went to the IMVS Pathology Centre at the Royal Adelaide Hospital to have a blood test. I wanted to see which one I used instinctively as a working photographer.

I started out using the Leica with a 35mm lens (a Summicron F2-ASPH) as I walked through the dense shopping precinct that is Rundle Mall. It was just as I would have done in my pre-digital days. But I actually ended up using the Sony a lot more. I did so without thinking about it. It was instinctive in a photographic sense.

exclusivity

The film Leica with its expensive lens was basically put away in favour of the pro-sumer digital Sony because the latter was more flexible, I could get more shots with the variable Zeiss lens, and I felt a lot more more comfortable experimenting with digital than film. Film costs money. Towards the end–on the way back through Rundle Mall after having the blood test—I only used the Lecia if I thought that I had a worthwhile image.

So this confirms what I said in my earlier post about using 35mm cameras. The shift to digital at this format is a worthwhile investment. That means the film camera is used in order to get that film look. Or the Leica ‘look’.

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Ballarat International Photo Biennale

I haven’t taken a photo all this week. The camera has sat on the table. I haven’t even looked at it. I have been busy preparing prints for two exhibition and prints for some portfolio reviews for the Ballarat International Photo Biennale. That means sitting in front of a computer screen for long stretches of time.

Gilbert St, Adelaide

Lucky for me it has been raining heavily most of the week. So I have selected a picture of shopwindow in my neighbourhood snapped on an earlier poodlewalk just before I went down to Victor Harbor. The weather was similar—rain with sunshine.

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street photography

I don’t do that much street photography, even though I live in the heart of this lawyer precinct in Adelaide. I’ve never had the confidence doing this genre with 35m film, let alone using medium format. It is pretty much hit and miss for me and film is too expensive for this kind of work.

Bean Bar, Adelaide CBD

Digital makes it so much easier to experiment and I can check the results on the spot whilst I wait for the next person to move into the urban space I’ve selected. Its convenient. However, the fundamental underpinning is very simple—film and its processing cost money, digital does not.

With the latter you can correct mistakes right away, experiment, try new approaches or techniques and have fun—and do so at no additional cost. It’s a no brainer.

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living in a commodity culture

We are surrounded by the images of our commodity culture whether we are watching tv, walking the streets of the city or working on our computers. The visual signs are everywhere.

Our experience is that we live under the assumption that there is no other way of knowing and being outside the phantasmagoriac realm of representation of commodity culture.

mannequin, Rundle Mall, Adelaide

So I photograph these visual forms. We often sleepwalk through their world, barely conscious of the way they speak to our desires or shape our sensory experience. ‘Sleepwalk’ because I often feel that we are living a dream of what it is to be modern in a world of progress (to a better life or future); a dream woven for us by the culture industry of capitalism.

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window shopping

I combined yesterday’s walk into the city to pick up the rubbish for the still life photoshoot with a few snaps. They were taken on the way into Hindley Street.

window shopping

The initial part of my walk left me rather down. Adelaide is so boring and depressing. Nothing much happens here. Its dead. The streets are empty. The place feels asleep. There seems to be little potential for urban change. Culture here is about big festivals and keeping old buildings from falling down.

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wandering in Oatlands

The only real opportunity I had to do a photowalk yesterday on the trip from Hobart to Tasmania was at Oatlands, a historic Georgian town in Tasmania’s Midlands

wedding dress, Oatlands

The westerly wind was strong and bitter. It was extremely chilling so I didn’t hang around for too long, exploring the Georgian architecture that the town is known for.

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international students

There are not that many retail shops in the urban neighbourhood in which our town house is located. It is part of the south-western corner of Adelaide’s CBD. It was mostly light industrial plus working class housing area in the 20th century. In the 21st century it is undergoing regional regeneration as residents, lawyers and small business move in.

The most fascinating part of this regeneration are the international students and the emergence of educational and other supoorting services (food, hairdressers, supermarkets, fashion etc) in and around the Central Market precinct.

white belt

This has bought some energy and life to Adelaide’s deadened CBD —-this precinct is now overflowing with people going about their everyday lives; relaxing in the coffeeshops and restaurants; and just hanging about enjoying themselves.

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mannequins

There are not many shops on the poodle walk to and from our inner city Sturt Street townhouse to the Adelaide Parklands. One of the few is the Salvation Army shop on Whitmore Square:

Salvation Army shop

The shop is set up to make money for the Salvation Army. The goods–furniture, clothes, nick-knacks, accessories–must be in good condition and desired by consumers. To all intents and purposes it is a retro shop selling vintage gems. They are fussy about the quality of the goods that you can give them free and their window display is varied and interesting.

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