digital Archives - Poodle Walks

August 9, 2025August 10, 2025

bushland studies

I have been photographing small details in the local bushland in contrast to thinking of the camera as an aggressive device: an instrument for shooting, capturing and representing the world. The word ‘to take ‘ express this approach to photography and ‘shoot’ become a synonym for ‘take” . The industrialized interpretation of photography is associated with indexicality, evidence, reproduction, and the actions of producing a photograph described as “taking,” “pointing,” and “shooting,”Underpinning this is the desire of humans to “conquer the world as picture.”

The modest photographs on these poodlewalks in the Waitpinga bushland are little studies of ephemeral objects, such as decaying leaves on a broken branch that are about to fall to the ground and disappear:

The southerly winds have a big influence on the bushland, notably with the force of the wind snapping branches and uprooting the trees.

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January 31, 2024January 31, 2024

Hiatus

It has been about five months since the last post on poodlewalks. Some explanation for the hiatus is mentioned here on The Littoral Zone. Posting on this website was also on the backburner due to the trip to Japan, which took place shortly after the last post in late September 2023. Roughly editing the photos that I made whilst in Japan pretty much preoccupied me for the rest of that year.

The last photos I made before I left for Japan in mid-October were those in the seascapes series on the early morning walks and in the evening ones in the magic hour.

The archive indicates that even though I was walking with the poodles and making photos in the Nov-Dec period after I’d returned from Japan, I didn’t re-connected to the next step of posting the images on the poodlewalks website.

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April 25, 2022May 3, 2022

a quiet moment

Last week Kayla and I were walking along a dusty, unsealed Depledge Rd in the early morning prior to wandering around in the local patch of bushland in Waitpinga in the southern Fleurieu Peninsula of South Australia.

A light, but cool, sou’ easterly wind was blowing across the field onto our bodies, the orange-brown Monarch butterflies were notable by their absence, and the yellow tailed cockatoos were watching us and sounding the alarm with their wailing calls. I could hear the laughing kookaburras in the distance.

The sun had just risen above the trees on the eastern horizon and its soft rays highlighted this grass tree (Xanthorrhoea) on the dusty roadside just as we were passing by. We stopped and I looked.

The sun’s rays were quite weak at that moment since they were shining through the distant trees after rising above the horizon. It doesn’t stay like this for long as the rays find a gap in the trees.

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June 4, 2021June 4, 2021

Salt

It is not often that I come across dried pools of salt along the littoral zone of the southern Fleurrieu Peninsula on the poodlewalks. High day temperatures, low tides and minimal coastal wind are required for the pools seawater to evaporate leaving the pools of dried salt:

I usually photograph these salt pools as abstractions.

The spaces in the littoral zone between Petrel Cove to King’s Beach in Waitpinga where this consistently happens are few and far between. Usually the moving sand or the tide covers them up.

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April 29, 2020April 29, 2020

skies: am + pm

The lockdown restrictions for the Covid-19 pandemic means that I can only travel in my local area, until the travel restrictions are eased (in mid-May?) to allow us to travel more widely within the South Australian borders. The permitted movement with the stay-at-home order is primarily for exercise. There are lots of people walking along the coastal paths in the Petrel Cove / Kings Beach area.

With the extensive economic dislocation and suffering from the Covid-19 lockdown, the political conversation has shifted to reopening the nation’s economy to ‘get the economy moving‘ as soon a possible. Rosy scenario’s abound. The federal Coalition government in Australia says it plans to return to its austerity and small state prescriptions –ie., cutting regulations, reducing taxes on business, a punitive cutting back welfare, and generally letting the private sector lead the economic restart. This, it is promised, will ensure that economic growth will proceed as before Covid-19. This assumes a sharp, V-shaped recovery.

During the lockdown I have been photographing in the Encounter Bay/Waitpinga area on the poodlewalks in both the morning and the evening. This digital snap was made on the morning of the 28th April before the rains came in from the south-west.

Whilst I was walking along Baum Rd with Kayla around sunrise I could sense that the rain was on its way. It held off until 3pm that afternoon, then it rained for most of the night. Luckily, the painters, who are painting the eves of the house, had just finished for the day. They won’t be returning until the following Monday, as the weather forecast is for continual rain for the rest of this week.

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January 2, 2019May 15, 2019

the Xmas break 2018

The weather along the coast of the southern Fleurieu Peninsula over the Xmas break was surprisingly cool; surprisingly so, given the record breaking heatwave across central and south-eastern Australia.

Despite having several friends stay with us in and around the Xmas break, it was a quiet holiday for me. I’d sprained my right shoulder one morning just before Xmas day whilst helping Suzanne to make the bed.

The shoulder became inflamed and, as it involved shoulder bursitis pain, I was obliged to rest the right arm in a sling for a couple of days over Xmas before seeing a physiotherapist late in the Xmas/New Year Day week. I was given a set of exercises to do for a week to strengthen the strained shoulder muscle.

Then the injury would be reassessed. The prognosis was that it could take 2-8 weeks to heal, depending on how I responded to the various exercises. I’ve had good days and bad days so far. Continue reading “the Xmas break 2018”

December 20, 2018June 3, 2019

close-ups

After the wildness of the stormy days, which stripped the local beaches of their sand we experienced several days of humid weather and gentle misty rain. Then the cold front rolled in from the south west and the temperature dropped dramatically.

I spent my time on the morning and evening poodlewalks exploring the nooks and crannies amongst the rocks, looking to do some handheld macro photography of seaweed. I quickly discovered that the piles of seaweed that had been thrown onto the rocks by the storm were mostly seagrass and not suitable.

The poodles in the afternoon would spend their time look for golf balls among the granite rocks, whilst I looked for subject matter for macro photography. We moved slowly across the rocks on our way beyond Kings Head finding what shelter we could when there was a bit of rain. Continue reading “close-ups”

December 16, 2018December 16, 2018

stormy days

South Australia was been battered by a violent storm from the south west during the last three days– from Thursday to Saturday. We experienced gale force winds, solid rain, high tides and surging seas along the coast of the southern Fleurieu Peninsula.

Our usual morning and evening poodlewalks were curtailed due to the water cutting off access to parts of the littoral zone. So I could not photograph the water flows. It was also too dangerous to venture around the rocks to Petrel Cove to do some macro due to the huge waves. Continue reading “stormy days”

November 21, 2018July 28, 2020

2 still life images

One early morning poodlewalk along the coastal rocks west of Petrel Cove last week with Kayla was very enjoyable and relaxing. The light was soft, there was little wind, and the light cloud cover meant that there was soft early morning light for an hour or so after sunrise. We were fortunate as the early mornings of late have been sunny, bright with blue sky.

These conditions allowed me to spend a a bit of time doing some photography amongst the seaweed, quartz and granite:

We have been having this part of the coast to ourselves in the last week or so. The only person I saw was Allan, who we see regularly. He does a daily walk from his home in Encounter Bay along the Heritage Trail to Kings Beach Rd, then walks back. Our paths often cross. Continue reading “2 still life images”

November 14, 2018June 3, 2019

sand patterns

As mentioned on the Encounter Studio blog when I am on the recent morning or afternoon poodlewalks I have started looking for suitable subjects that would work as an image when the colour file made with a digital camera is then converted to black and white.

The subjects have usually been granite rocks but of late, I am turning to sand patterns. This is a recent example:

The above image looked very ordinary in colour when I viewed it on the computer screen, in the sense that it was not deserving of a second more considered look. It look more interesting when I converted it to black and white as an experiment. Continue reading “sand patterns”