digital Archives - Page 14 of 34

June 18, 2014

the conservative prescription for Adelaide

As Ari and I wander around the CBD I cannot help but noticing how lively the city of Adelaide is becoming as a result of the state Labor government and the Adelaide City Council’s attempts to make the CBD a more vibrant place to live.

So it is with some dismay that I read the two Liberal candidates for Lord Mayor–Mark Hamilton and Michael Henningsen— are intent on rolling back the gains because we have lost our pride in Adelaide.

Between them these two candidates want more cars in the city; they want to do away with bike and bus lanes; they are opposed to high rise apartments; see the attempts to make the CBD a more vibrant place (eg., the upgrade to Victoria Square) as flawed and self-indulgent; and they want to return council to refocus on repairing the streets i.e. to focus on the traditional roads, rates and rubbish.

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June 17, 2014

pavement art

On a recent poodlewalk Ari and I stumbled upon a trail of pavement art that started from the Sturt St Community School. We followed it along Wilcox St to the children’s playground on South Terrace in the southern part of the Adelaide parklands. I would expect that the trail of brightly painted insects would be very popular with the local community.

Since Sturt St was where the trial of a separated bicycle lane was a failure it was good to see something to liven up the neglected south western corner of Adelaide.

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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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June 10, 2014

seaweed, sand, rocks, clouds

We spent the 3 day Queens birthday weekend (7-9th June) at Victor Harbor trying to avoid the day tripper crowds on our poodlewalks. People are discovering that winter on the southern Fleurieu Peninsula is quite pleasant.

Kings Beach was one option as winter time means that there is no one swimming or sunning themselves on the beach.

People were mostly walking along the Heysen Trail, which meant that we could walk the beach slowly around to the rock coast of Kings Head.

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May 25, 2014

a red door

Ari and I wandered around Adelaide’s CBD early this morning.It was Sunday and so the city streets were relatively quiet apart from people (young males) spilling out from the nightclubs. The early morning light was flat and drab as there was fog hanging around. There was no early morning sunlight.

We walked to the Morphett Street Bridge then returned to Sturt St via the University of South Australia.

I was looking for material for my 1picaday2014 project and keen to have another look at the University of South Australia’s new Jeffrey Smart Building on Hindley St that was designed by architects John Wardle and Phillips/Pilkington.

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May 1, 2014

visiting Kangaroo Island

We have 6 days at American River on Kangaroo Island with friends. The time is spent relaxing, going for walks, reading, taking photos and enjoying the calm and overcast autumn conditions.

Ari and wander around the wetlands between the road and Pelican Lagoon. There is more water around the wetlands because of the very high tides.

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April 25, 2014

hanging out at Kings Head

We are at Victor Harbor for the Easter to Anzac Day break. As it’s also school holidays we have been trying to avoid the crowds by going to Kings Beach and Kings Head for our poodle walks.

These locations have had fewer people than Petrel Cove, Dog Beach or the mouth of the Hindmarsh River. We have had to be careful walking around the rocks in this area because it has been a high tide in the late afternoon, and the waves have been very big because of the full moon.

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April 10, 2014

taking a break

I spent a couple of days at Encounter Studio in Victor Harbor scanning a variety of negatives that had been taken earlier this year. Rolls of 35mm colour, 6×6, colour, black and white, and tranny and 5×4 colour sheet film needed to be done.

Scanning film is a slow, tedious task. I do not enjoy it. So I welcomed the break in the late afternoon to walk the poodles around the mouth of the Hindmarsh River in Encounter Bay, along the beach and through the estuary.

I’d initially checked the Hindmarsh estuary out because I wanted to do some large format studies of the melaleucas in the estuary that I’d scooped last year. But they were still flooded. There hadn’t been enough rain for the river flow cut through the sand bar and open the mouth of the river. So the water was backing up.

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April 1, 2014

Rosetta Head

The poodles and I are at Victor Harbor for a couple of days. The weather has returned to summer conditions: it is dry, hot and strong northerly winds. People were out walking before dawn this morning to escape the heat.People have been swimming and surfing at Petrel Cove since Sunday.

It’s autumn but it really feels like summer with families hanging out on the beach in the late afternoon. It was actually too hot to have breakfast on the balcony this morning.

Raffi burned off his energy by chasing rabbits and kangaroos whilst Ari and I scrambled around Rosetta Head. I took the odd snap but I was thinking about how to take a photo of the Petrel Cove landscape through the car window for the April ‘windows’ theme in the 1picaday2014 project.

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March 15, 2014

wandering in the West Terrace Cemetery

The poodlewalk yesterday afternoon was in the West Terrace Cemetery in the Adelaide parklands that surround the square mile of the city. We returned there because I was sick of all the junk food and rubbish that was tossed on the ground in the Adelaide parklands proper and fighting the dogs over chicken bones. I wanted an easy walk away from the rubbish and the people playing sport so that could concentrate on photography.

sport.

I was looking for material for my 1picaday2014 project. The graveyards in the cemetery have lots of letters and signs to work with as many of the gravestones have been badly damaged by vandals.