architecture Archives - Page 2 of 14

July 16, 2015

in Melbourne: thinking about Flickr

It is argued that in contrast to the Kodak culture, where a small group of persons (friends and family) share oral stories around images with others, the digital new culture of the image on Flickr, the photo-sharing site, is one where a large-scaled conversation is shared with people that participants don’t know in real life.

That large-scaled conversation shared with people used to be the case with Flickr, but it is less so know. Flickr’s key strengths are seen as photo sharing and storage. Around 2005/2006 it was the best online photo management and sharing application in the world. There was the social sharing which used to be quite active in a community sense because Flickr was a place where people who took photography more seriously went.

No longer. The impact of the mobile phone has meant that people tick the ‘like’ button for an particular image, rather than comment or engage in a large scale conversation on other people’s photos. I used to engage in the conversations but with Yahoo’s recent (2013) revamp/redesign of Flickr I more or less drop an image into my photo stream and run. The new style Flickr represents a “sea change” in its purpose. Continue reading “in Melbourne: thinking about Flickr”

April 10, 2015

Lady Bay

We have had visitors from Melbourne staying at our place in Victor Harbor over Easter. Since they are both friends and photographers one of the days during Easter was devoted to a photography excursion to the western Fleurieu Peninsula coast.

We went to see the exhibition of the Fleurieu Four Seasons Prize for Landscape Photography at the Normanville Beach Gallery and Cafe Foreshore, and then spent time exploring the coastal bays and settlements that form part of the western Fleurieu Peninsula.

The exploration included Lady Bay, Wirrina Cove, Second Valley, Rapid Bay, then finally Delamare before returning to Victor Harbor along the Range Road. It was very bright and sunny in the afternoon, and these kind of conditions are not good for photography. Continue reading “Lady Bay”

March 11, 2015

petrol stations

Ari and I have started walking around the Victor Harbor township on some of our early morning poodle walks. We needed a change from walking the beach at the western end of Encounter Bay each morning at dawn and I wanted to start walking earlier that 6.45am. We can wander around the town in the dark because of the street lights, and then I can take photos after dawn has broken.

There are only a few people about the town at this time of the morning–mostly groups of people walking across the causeway to Granite Island and back again.

The National Broadband Network people, who were very visible laying cable in the township and around Encounter Bay, seem to have disappeared. I don’t see any crews working on the streets whilst making my way back to Encounter Studio. And there I was thinking that the western end of Encounter Bay where we live would be getting FTTP in the next 6 months. That’s a dream.

The NBN Co appears to have slowed down its broadband rollout under the new Multi-Technology Mix (MTM) and I fear that our area of Encounter Bay will be outside the fibre footprint. Continue reading “petrol stations”

March 7, 2015

a quick trip

With the power at Victor Harbor of Friday from 8am to 4.30 pm we all drove up to Adelaide for the day to do bits and pieces—-haircuts, dropping off books and records, shopping at the Adelaide Central Market, and taking in exhibitions at the Light Gallery and CACSA. Ari and I were even able to do a small poodle walk in the CBD whilst we were waiting for Suzanne to drop off some old records at ReRun Records and Photography:

Whilst waiting we did a quick explore of some back alley ways off Pultney Street and behind Rundle Mall—eg., Porters Lane.

February 22, 2015

the Atkins film challenge

Ari and I drove up to Adelaide for the Akins Film Challenge on Friday, 13th February. We were driving in from the outer suburbs of Adelaide and were caught up in the peak hour commuter traffic along Goodwood Rd. The challenge starts at 9.15 am when you are handed a 120 roll of Fuji Velvia 100F film (now discontinued due to their withdrawing from the film business).

The rules of the challenge are: you have around 3 hours to expose the 12 exposures; it needs to be returned to Atkins by 1pm; Atkins processes the film; and you return the lab at 4pm to select your best picture. Atkins then undertakes to scan the transparency over the next few weeks, you make minor adjustments in post processing, then return it to Atkins in a week or so, who they then mount it for an exhibition in their foyer of the lab.

The general idea behind the film challenge is that the photography is done in Adelaide’s summer heat and in the harsh, glaring summer light. So it challenges the myth of only taking photos in good light. This time round the day was very hot but overcast and the light was very flat. Ari and I hung around in the car parks in the east end of Rundle Street, and I made a number of digital snaps whilst making the photos for the film challenge:

It was hot even in the car parks. After three hours work I was exhausted. I collapsed upon returning to the lab to hand in the film for processing. I recovered whilst having my lunch at the lab, then returned to the Sturt St townhouse to touch up the walls that had been damaged by the furniture removalists. It was the day of the settlement on Sturt St. The townhouse had been stripped and was awaiting the tenants. Continue reading “the Atkins film challenge”

February 7, 2015

along Franklin St

The last poodle walk Ari and I did whilst I was living in the Sturt St townhouse in Adelaide’s CBD was on the Sunday morning before we left the city to live on the coast at Encounter Bay. As Ari and I were saying goodbye to the city we had lived in for a decade it was appropriate that we visited a carpark:

As I now live 80 kilometres from Adelaide I will no longer be able to pop out and just aimlessly walk the city. It’s about a 70 minute drive from the southern Fleurieu Peninsula coast to the CBD Continue reading “along Franklin St”

January 18, 2015

Chesser St

The Sturt St townhouse is now under contract with settlement a month away, and so it was okay for the poodles and myself to return to the Adelaide and mess the house up.

Ari and I spent early Sunday morning photographing the city, picking up from where I’d left off on a Sunday morning a fortnight ago.This time around it was with a medium format camera and tripod with long exposures as it was overcast between 6 and 7 am.

As usual there was no one around -apart from the odd male, rubbish truck and taxi. The only difference this time were the groups of bike riders in lyrca associated with The Tour Down Under.

I really should have been using a large format camera–ie., the Cambo 5×7 SC monorail— for this architectural work, but that had been left down at Victor Harbor. I needed to bring the iMac back to town work on for the next month or so that we are in the city. Continue reading “Chesser St”

December 29, 2014

a deserted city

Ari and I wandered around the CBD of Adelaide on Sunday morning after returning from a few days holiday in Victor Harbor. We returned to Adelaide in order to continue cleaning and painting the townhouse before it goes on the market in mid-January.

It was an eerie experience. We were the only ones walking the city.

Then I realized that a CBD devoid of people was the Adelaide that I knew whilst I lived in the CBD. It is only in the last couple of years that Adelaide has changed in the sense that people now walk the streets. The CBD is no longer just a space for work and shopping since people–mostly young people– have started living in the city and spending their time on the street. Continue reading “a deserted city”

December 22, 2014

coming to an end

The days of living and walking in the CBD of Adelaide are coming to a close. The poodlewalk with Ari last Saturday morning will be one of the last as the townhouse is due to go on the market in mid-January.When it is sold–as we hope–then that will be the end of us living in the CBD.

We now live in the townhouse in order to scrub it up–clean it and paint it –for sale. The cameras, computers and scanners are now at Victor Harbor, which is the southern outer suburban rim of Adelaide. We are about one and half hours travelling time by car from the CBD. The car, rather than walking, will now be our primary mode of transport. There is no public transport from the CBD to the outer suburban coastal rim. Nor will there be.
Continue reading “coming to an end”

December 14, 2014

making cities liveable

Walking around Adelaide’s CBD with Ari has enabled me to see that urban design in Adelaide, since the 1960s, has been structured around keep the car happy.

Its been about suburban sprawl, traffic efficiency and parking spaces rather than public spaces for people to gather. The assumed model of urban design is the old modernist one— modern cities are about high-rises and good windy spaces rather than being about the human lives lived within the city.

It was only liveable because it was small or compact and so avoided the congestion of Sydney. The recent shift is towards densifying Adelaide around the core infrastructure, transport hubs and a diversity of income groups in the CBD. Continue reading “making cities liveable”