A lo fi visual diary
Prior going to Melbourne Ari, Kayla and I walked around the Victor Harbor township for our early morning poodle walks. I was interested in finding out what was happening with the early morning light in autumn. The light has been shifting quite quickly.
The photographic possibilities are not that numerous in and around the township, and I’m using the poodlewalks to find out what is there. At this stage it’s more about the light than the subject matter. Continue reading “autumn”
Ari and I have been walking around the Hayborough section of Encounter Bay on our early morning walks this week. It has expensive townhouses, bush between the houses and the beach and a white sand beach. This area is missed by most tourists and is frequented more by the locals—generally surfers, runners and dog walkers due to its access being hidden away.
My photography has been minimal but, I have been looking for locations along the road that would be suitable for an arial photograph of the beach, sea and sky and then one looking back to the township of Victor Harbor. The best time for this photography is just after sunrise. This morning we walked along the road and the beach around Chiton Rocks.
The early mornings are clear, crisp and there is no cloud cover. The light is very bright 30 minutes after sunrise. It’s classic autumn weather in South Australia. Continue reading “Chiton Rocks”
Whilst Suzanne walked Ari and Kayla Heather Petty, Maleko and I went on a photowalk along the foot of the cliffs east of Kings Beach yesterday afternoon. We were photographing for about 3-4 hours in the warm autumn weather:
Heather was using her brand new DSLR —–a Nikon Df—–with a super duper zoom lens—a AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8 VR11— that allowed her do everything she needed along the coastal strip.That big impressive lens looked like Nikon’s workhorse lens. Continue reading “a poodle walk with Heather Petty”
With few exceptions, my photography has been limited to the small walks I’ve been doing in and around Encounter Bay with Kayla and Ari in both the morning and evening. They are small walks because Kayla, who is still only 9-10 weeks old, cannot walk that far.
We hang about for a while on the beach on each walk so that Kayla can play in the sand and seaweed and rest. Ari stands guard and I learn to ‘be in the moment’ and look for photographic subject matter.
Given the limited opportunities for photography I have to make do with what I can find whilst on the small walks. Continue reading “on small walks”
Now that the household is based in Encounter Bay, Victor Harbor with an young pup–Kayla–the poodle walks have changed. I do a gentle, meandering walk along the beach at Encounter Bay with Ari and Kayla in the morning and afternoon whilst Suzanne does the more strenuous Bluff and Dog Beach walk with Maleko.
This will probably change when Kayla can do longer walks–maybe in a few weeks–and then she can accompany Suzanne and Maleko. Continue reading “along Encounter Bay”
We took a break from our shift to Victor Harbor on Sunday afternoon. We’d had enough of packing up at Sturt St and clearing out the years of accumulated junk at Victor Harbor. So we went for a quick trip to Second Valley on the western Fleurieu Peninsula.
This was the location for the Fleurieu Four Seasons Photography Landscape competition in 2014. You can view the images online, if you register and vote for the People’s Choice Award.
We meet up with Heather Petty at Leonards Mill, and then we walked along the cliffs above the beach at Second Valley with the poodles for an hour or so. The beach was packed with people.
Suzanne, Heather and Maleko continued walking up a step hill whilst Ari and I waited for them on a stoney/rocky beach. Ari’s arthritis means that he can no longer climb hills.
Continue reading “at Second Valley”
Whilst the Sturt St townhouse in Adelaide is on the market and the various offers are being assessed, I’m down at Victor Harbor keeping the standard poodles out of the way for the open inspections and beginning the adjustment to living on the coast.
I’m using the time away from Adelaide to start to centre some of my poodle walk snaps made in, and around, the Fleurieu Peninsula coastline into some kind of project. A low key or modest one.
The weather on the coast has been overcast and showery with strong south westerly winds, and we’ve usually ended up getting wet in the morning and the evening whilst returning to the car or house from the beach from the rain. It’s wet shoes, damp clothes and wet dogs. Continue reading “summer rains”
After dropping off an Edgeland’s catalogue to The Arts Centre at Port Noarlunga I drove to Port Willunga to photograph the cliffs I’d scoped a few days earlier. It was pouring with rain so I drove onto Sellicks Beach and waited in the car for the rain to pass. We then walked the beach whilst I scoped the sandstone base of some of the cliffs bordering the beach.
We walked to the end of the sandstone cliffs but the rain returned about halfway back. As we’d walked past the caves at the base of the cliffs that would have provided us with some shelter from the rain, we were in the open on the beach and got wet. Once again there were 4 wheel drives whizzing up and down the beach and parking is allowed on the sand. Continue reading “on Sellicks Beach”
Yesterday’s afternoon poodle walk was from the River Murray near Beacon 19 to Goolwa Beach along the Sir Richard Peninsula near the mouth of the Murray River and back again. I was looking for material whilst walking to and from the beach to build on the Edgelands project for a book, but there was little that was of interest.
The beach has been given over to 4 wheel drives—they more or less treated it as a roadway to cruise up and down. Presumably, this is what the 4 wheel drive crowd see as having fun.
It wasn’t all that pleasant walking along the beach with the 4 wheel drives whizzing past. It would have been great to have walked to the mouth of the Murray River, or to explore the sand patterns on the beach. This is very close to the very distinctive and vulnerable Coorong National Park.
Continue reading “at Goolwa Beach”
The shift to living at Victor Harbor has started after our return from the Edgeland exhibition in Canberra.
The things in the townhouse in Adelaide are slowly being decluttered, we are tarting the place up, the painters come in on Monday, and the carpet layers the following week. My photography equipment, the books and the digital suite are being driven down to Encounter Studio at Victor Harbor early tomorrow morning. The poodle walks will be mostly along the cost of the southern Fleurieu Peninsula coast from now on.
We have been living in the townhouse in the CBD of Adelaide and travelling to Victor Harbor every second weekend for about 15 years. The townhouse will be sold early 2015. This is a major shift. In the future we will be visiting Adelaide on a day trip.