car parks Archives - Poodle Walks

October 10, 2017

retracing old urban walks with Ari in Adelaide

Whilst Lariane Fonseca was staying with us at Encounter Bay whilst on her way back to Geelong from her Flinders Ranges trip I took the opportunity to do some research for the Adelaide Photography 1970-2000 book and to walk Adelaide’s CBD.

It was a nostalgic walk. I re-walked some of the routes that I used to do with Ari when we were living in the CBD. It was all about my memories. I even returned to some of the carparks that we used to visit and explore together:

The early morning and late afternoon poodlewalks walks in the CBD with Ari are what I miss about not living in the city now. I don’t really miss anything else about living in the city.

Continue reading “retracing old urban walks with Ari in Adelaide”

April 18, 2017

From a local beach to a carpark

On my morning poodle walks with Ari I have noticed how the Bluff Boat Ramp car park extension at the western end of Encounter Bay is taking out a beach to construct a carpark for boaties, which will they only use during the peak summer Xmas season.

The extension allows for an additional 34 parking spaces to accommodate 14 boat trailers and 20 cars. Currently there are 34 parking spaces for boaies at the Bluff Boat Ramp car park, and this only overflows 4 days a year around Xmas with the summer influx of boaties. The extension costs $548,300 with the Victor Harbor Council receiving funding of $242,150 from the state government for the project.The extension has State Agency (DPTI) support of the project and it was approved by the Development Assessment Commission.

The current parking area in front of Whalers is used by boaties, school buses, paddlers and sightseers and there is space for approximately 60 cars. But with the boat ramp expansion the parking area will be reduced to only 20 with the rest of area being used strictly for boaties and their cars and trailers. So half a million is being spent for the current car park for boaties and their trailers that will be used for 4 days a year.

A beach goes in the name of car parks to foster tourism.

Continue reading “From a local beach to a carpark”

July 30, 2016

After the storms

The recent stormy, winter weather has meant that our poodle walks have been mostly along the back country roads since they offer some protection from the wind. We have only infrequently walked along the coastline because it is usually windswept: battered by the south-westerly winds and intense rain.

The picture below is from one of the rare occasions during July that we ventured onto Rosetta Head. We waited in the Subaru Forester for the squalls to pass through, then we went for our walk around Rosetta Head keeping an eye on the incoming squalls coming from the south.

Whilst we were waiting in the Subaru for the squalls to pass I took some photos of the landscape through the windscreen of the Forester.
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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”

December 9, 2014

slowness

If cities are now seen as ‘engines for innovation and growth’, then the smart city paradigm is seen to involve the application of information and communication technology, environmental sensors, digital footprints of the inhabitants, manipulation of the resulting data using statistical techniques, and finally the use of complexity modelling and advanced visualisation in order to make sense of it all.

These assemblages aim to promote efficiency, productivity, and safety and to reduce uncertainty in the management of places. Smart city initiatives have been closely linked to the forms of accelerated living that increasingly dominate everyday life in the global metropolitan era. Smart cities are fast cities, efficient cities, controlled cities.

Poodlewalks are about slowness in a city increasingly dominated by speed and movement, acceleration and flow–wandering into car parks and observing the light on the built environment. Slowness stands for slowing down–for deceleration, detour, delay, interruption, inertia, stoppage and immobility. It stands for decelerated living in the context of the embrace and internalization of a culture of speed and hypermobility (of people, data, goods, capital, etc).

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June 15, 2014

foggy Adelaide

It was quite foggy in the Adelaide early this morning when Ari and I went walking around the CBD. As most of the car parks are closed early on a Sunday morning it was difficult to find an elevated view of the CBD. We eventually found one with the lifts working, and I was able to take a few snaps before the fog lifted.

The fog didn’t last that long once the sun rose above the Adelaide Hills.

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June 12, 2014

car congestion in Adelaide

Adelaide’s traffic congestion has been steadily increasing over the past decade and it will continue to do so over the next decade. The problem is that there are too many cars on the roads. The RAA’s solution is to build bigger and better arterial roads whilst the Property Council’s main policy appears to be to not have a car park tax. Adelaide’s city property sector often ties cheap car parking to successful commercial and retail models.

Both solutions increase Adelaide’s dependency on cars and ignore how congestion would be a disaster for the city economy and social well-being of its residents. It is often quite unpleasant to walk around the city on a poodle walk.

The city of Adelaide supports a heavily car dependent metropolitan workforce, in fact it is one of the most car dependent in the western world whilst its car parking is the cheapest and most plentiful by far of Australia’s major capitals.

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February 28, 2014

Mad March in Adelaide

‘Mad March’ is here tomorrow and that means its Festival time in Adelaide. Fringe, the Adelaide Festival of Arts, the Clipsal 500 and Womadealide. There’s even a state election for political junkies.

Ari and I continue to cruise the CBD in the late afternoon looking for spots with interesting interplay of light and shadow:

It’s the 1picaday2014 project that has motivated me to get out and walk the city–to get away from the computer and working on images for an exhibition in April.

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December 11, 2012

Adelaide architecture

The heat has returned to Adelaide. As the temperatures are going to be in the high 30’s for the rest of the week, so our poodlewalks include carparks and streets in the CBD that deep shadows in the early evening.

The carparks give me a ariel perspective on Adelaide’s architecture and I’m finding find a lot of it rather depressing. This TAFE building,for industry, reminds me of a prison—it is actually very similar to the Remand Centre just down the road.

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December 7, 2012

Central Market precinct

I went for a quick a walk around the Central Market precinct this morning after breakfast. It was overcast, muggy and the light was soft. I had a coffee at The Marquis amongst the lawyers, and glanced through the AFR for possible material to bounce off for my public opinion blog.

I put some medium format film into Photoco to be developed, and then started exploring the central market area itself.

Would this picture work as a large format shoot I wondered? I was unsure. I’ll keep coming back to it to have a look.

The market is very dark without the artificial lights, and the neon lights in the various stalls makes the light that falls on the produce contrasty and really ugly. I was looking for an area with vegetables and natural light. I had in mind some sort of still life.

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