poodleadmin, Author at Poodle Walks

October 26, 2014

a photo trip to Sedan

Ari and I went on a photo trip yesterday with Ben Loveday, Adam Jan Dutkiewicz, Aldo Trissi and Michal Dutkiewicz. We went to Lobethal/Birdwood/Mount Pleasant/Keyneton/Sedan and then retraced our path on the return trip. We drove through the Basket Range and along the Torrens Valley.

I haven’t done one of these kind of photo trips for ages–I used to do this kind of photo trip when I had a Kombi that carried a 5×7 Cambo in a trunk and I was photographing in black and white. I was surprised to see that the South Australian state government changers to many German place names during WW1 still remained in place.

Sedan, a country town at the foot of the Mt Lofty Ranges and on the plains that lead to the the River Murray. It was an eyeopener. It was hot, dry and dusty, derelict, full of abandoned houses, and an extensive use of limestone in the built environment.

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October 19, 2014

walking the South Rd Superway

It was another Friday night with Suzanne and Maleko going to puppy pre-school at Regency Park and Ari and I filling in time by walking the South Rd Superway for an hour or so. We started out on the A13 from the South Rd/Grand Junction Rd corner and continued walking west for 25 minutes.

It was bright and sunny at 6.30 pm and, fortunately for us, most of the traffic was moving on the elevated roadway. So I was able to scope the urbanscape underneath. I didn’t really know what to expect. All I had in mind were some possibilities for a 5×7 large format photoshoot from the brief previous scouting. So we wandered.

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October 15, 2014

along Flinders Street

Ari, Maleko and I wandered around the Flinders St precinct yesterday as part of our afternoon poodlewalk.

I wanted to have another look at the late afternoon light on both the concrete modernist architecture and the nineteenth century buildings.

There is a big contrast between these two styles of architecture. People in Adelaide still don’t warm to the brutalism of the 1960s concrete and glass modernism, even though its been there for over half a century. I’ve made my peace with it. I can accept it— unadorned geometric forms, open interiors, and the use of glass, steel, and reinforced concrete—as part of our architectural history, and I think that it should be preserved as part of our architectural heritage. I’m probably in a minority.

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October 9, 2014

walking around Franklin Street

Since the theme for the 1picaday2014 project is architecture Ari and I have been wandering the city close to the Sturt St townhouse. I cannot leave Maleko at home alone for very long on his own. So we cruised nearby Franklin Street:

The Pad is a Gamer’s bar and lounge. I’ve never been inside. I’m more intrigued by the building and the laneway that runs north/south between Grote and Franklin Street.

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October 6, 2014

at Regency Park

Ari and I walked around Regency Park in Adelaide last Friday whilst Suzanne and Maleko were at puppy pre-school. I was looking for material for October’s architectural theme for my 1picady2014 project. It was around 6pm, the sun was just going down, and we had an hour or so to fill in. I didn’t have the lightweight Linhof tripod that I’d acquired for the digital camera on me. So I gave up on the idea of returning to the Dry Creek Area which I had initially planned to revisit.

So we just ambled around this industrial/warehouse area. It was pretty quiet. Most of the warehouses had closed and the workers had gone. There was just a couple of workers relaxing at Nippys.

The odd semi-trailer rolled through the area and one went into Nippy’s. The wife of a Muslim couple was learning to drive a car and the ute crowd were using the ATM to get money for their Friday night’s fun. Apart from that it was very quiet. It was quite suitable for some large format photography.

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October 1, 2014

on Dog Beach

A car trip from Adelaide CBD to Mt Barker for the poodles to be clipped and groomed, a quick walk in Kuitpo Forest afterwards, then onto Victor Harbor for a couple of days. The evening walk with Ari and Maleko was along the beach west of Petrel Cove. A cold south westerly was blowing. It was cloudy. Rain was coming.

Despite it being the first week of the school holidays there was no one around on Dog Beach. The families were all hanging out at the Woolworth’s mall in town.

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September 27, 2014

at Henley Beach

Ari and I went to Henley Beach to help Gilbert Roe hang his ‘Time & Tide’ exhibition at the Swedish Tarts cafe. The images were made with a flat bed scanner and could be considered to be the digital equivalent of the 20th century photogram.

After hanging the exhibition I walked back to the car to pick up Ari, then we walked to Hendley Square to share a glass of wine, then Ari and I walked back to the car. It was just after sunset and I saw this building on Seaview Rd on the way back to the car:

A gentle south west wind was blowing and people were strolling along the esplanade and the beach enjoying the softness of the dusk.

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September 22, 2014

starting out in the city

Yesterday evening’s poodlewalk was Maleko’s first walk in the city. We had just returned from a week of walking and playing on the beaches in and around Victor Harbor in the morning and evening.

We walked along Sturt St to Whitmore Square, then back along Wright Street to the townhouse. Maleko was a little unsure of himself, as there was so many strange happenings and sounds on the city streets compared to the coastal quietness of Encounter Bay in the early morning.

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September 18, 2014

at Petrel Cove

It was just a trip to Petrel Cove this afternoon. Maleko was tired from an earlier afternoon walk around the Inman River and Kent Reserve and he didn’t want to walk that far. So Petrel Cove it was.

We mostly hung out on the beach on the Rosetta Head side of the cove. We wanted to sit in the sun and avoid the cold south easterly wind that cut through our clothes. It had been raining all morning at Encounter Bay so the sun was more than welcome.

I realised that the photography done whilst on poodle walks has a conceptual emphasis on the exploration and development of ideas surrounding those moments and aspects in everyday life that are often deemed as just normal, ordinary, perhaps even non-essential, but are in fact potentially worthy and notable and should not simply be overlooked.

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September 14, 2014

limited walks

The nature of our poodlewalks has changed with the arrival of Maleko, a 8 week old blue standard poodle pup, last Friday. We cannot walk far, and we more or less hang around on the beach at Encounter Bay, in the morning.

Or rather, Suzanne walks Ari in the morning whilst I hang out on the beach with Maleko, so that he becomes at ease with, and confident in, this coastal environment.

The photography is circumscribed until Maleko can walk a greater distance. Or we carry him some of the way, which is what we did yesterday afternoon when we all went to hang out at Petrel Cove:

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