Author: poodleadmin

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Queenstown: burnt landscape

The image below is an example of the landscape site that I mentioned in the previous post which I want to work with the Linhof 5×4. It’s close to the main road, I’m able to park the car safely, the site is easily accessible, and I can work the landscape under a dark cloth without having to worry about cars running me down.

burnt landscape

I was up there this morning, but I was too late. The Queenstown township is enfolded in dense fog in the mornings as it is in a valley, and I’m finding it difficult to judge when the sun rises and lightens up the tablelands from the caravan park. Even though I was there at 7.30 with the 5×4 I was too late. So it will have to be tomorrow morning.

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in Queenstown

I’ve spent the last couple of days doing a scoping study of the work that I want to do with the Linhof 5×4 over the next few days, as well as photographing bits and pieces with the Rolleiflex SL66. I’m annoyed.

The backup body of the latter has now gone and I’m down to the Rolleiflex TLR. The 5×4 Linhof becomes my main camera and the Rolleiflex TLR becomes the ancillary camera. I’m out of my comfort zone.

I have found three sites to work at with the Linhof. One is an area around the old Iron Blow Mine. The second is the burnt landscape around the Queenstown airport; burnt because it has had fire through it recently. The third is the ruins of the Tasmanian Smelters site at Zeehan.

slag heap, Zeehan

I know very little about the history of the Zeehan site. I know that in late 1882, silver-lead ore was discovered near the present day site of Zeehan and that this led to the largest mining boom on Tasmania’s west coast with Zeehan being dubbed the ‘Silver City of the West’.

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Tasmania: Tunbridge

I had a brief photo walk around Tunbridge in the Midlands whilst we stayed with Barb and Mal. It was mainly of the township and its architecture:

Georgian store, Tunbridge

I did some sketches of agricultural landscapes to explore with the 5×4 when we return to Tunbridge after the Queenstown and Cradle Mountain leg of the trip. I was put out because the Rolleiflex SL66 jammed on the early Sunday morning shoot and I couldn’t fix it. I was fortunate to be carrying a spare body that I could use.

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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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preparing for Tasmania

I’m down at Victor Harbor tonight packing my camera gear and loading 5×4 sheet film for my forthcoming trip to Tasmania. Half of the time on the island has been structured around photography in Queenstown.

fence

We went for an evening walk along the beach and amongst the houses set back from the beach. The sun was shining but the southerly wind was cold. It was jumpers and jeans –it was such a contrast to the warmth of Adelaide. I shivered, thinking how cold the south west part of Tasmania is going to be.

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architectural photography

Now and again on the poodlewalks I take photos of the neighbourhood architecture in an exploratory sort of way. Some of the architectural forms in the built environment is visually interesting–both the heritage buildings and the postmodern ones. Modernism is exhausted.

However, I haven’t really gone that step further and started taken architectural photos with a view camera, even though I’ve uncovered some possibilities.

SAMFS Adelaide fire station

I have intended to do so–its the traditional way is it not?—but I haven’t explored the different perspectives in architectural photography, or rather the different ways of photographing architecture.

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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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landscapes

We were down at Victor Harbor over the weekend and so the poodlewalks were along, and around, the coastline. This is the image that I wanted to take with the 5×7 Cambo view camera, but the weather was against me. There were strong winds blowing from the south west across the top of the cliffs and this made it impossible for me to use a view camera.

coastline, looking to The Bluff

So I had to give it up even though I’d finally found the location I was looking for. I have been exploring this coastline for several years, as it is our backyard so to speak. I now find I’m reworking it with a digital camera looking for a photographic image.

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camping in Adelaide’s parklands

Wirranender Park in the Adelaide parklands is a favourite spot for transients to construct makeshift campsites. This is especially so for those aboriginal people who come down to Adelaide from their homeland in outback northern South Australia, and are unable to find temporary accommodation.

Aboriginal camp in parklands

As I mentioned in an earlier post Aboriginal people camped—ie., sleeping rough–- in the Parklands is a controversial issue in Adelaide.

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Wirranendi Park

We returned to exploring Wirranender Park in the Adelaide Parklands on Sunday even though it was raining. I wanted to see some of the sculpture in this public spaces; a space that looks as if it is being designed as an urban forest with an environmental trail.

Scattered along the trail are a large number of rock sculptures by Silvio Apponyi and other sculptors, including this piece by Sally Weekes:

hush

An interpretation taken with my 5×4 Linhof Technika IV. This Wirranendi area of the Adelaide Parklands was once covered by Eucalyptus porosa or Mallee Box Woodland. This consisted of widely spaced gums, many acacias, native apricots, quandongs, saltbushes, native herbs, peas and lilies and many types of grasses, providing habitat for many native animals and birds.

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