digital Archives - Page 6 of 34

July 16, 2016

on Hall Creek Rd

Hall Creek Rd is a back country road in Waitpinga, on the southern Fleurieu Peninsula of South Australia. We have been walking along it in the late afternoon during the recent stormy weather whilst Suzanne has been away walking the Heysen Trail around Laura in the mid-north.

The road is part of the Heysen Trail, and so it is quiet. It is protected from the winds, has the afternoon sun, is reasonably dry, and the fences on both sides of the road are in good condition. The latter is crucial because there are often kangaroos in the fields:

The fences prevent the standard poodles from entering the fields to chase the kangaroos. If the kangaroos are grazing amongst the road side vegetation, which they sometimes do, they are able to jump the fences into the fields.
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July 6, 2016

winter

Winter so far has been wet, very wet, along the coast of the southern Fleurieu Peninsula. Most days it has been raining steadily throughout the day. There are moments of no rain in the morning and afternoon, and these are quickly taken advantage of for our poodle walks.

We had a couple of such moment on the cliff top walk this morning–moments between the squalls that swept in from the south whilst we were walking along Dep Beach, which is west of Petrel Cove. Although it is often very atmospheric the weather only allows for quick snaps.
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July 1, 2016

Rosetta Head

I have been minding the standard poodles whilst Suzanne has been in the Pilbara in Western Australia with Heather Petty exploring the Karijini National Park in the Hamersley Range. They camped at the Karijini Eco Retreat.

It’s been cold, stormy and wet on the south coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula with sporadic sunshine.I have been trying to walk in the morning and the evening between the squalls in areas that provide some protection from the bitter southerly winds and away from the mud. So we have been walking along back country roads in the morning and later afternoon. The only photographs that I have done whilst Suzanne has been away are a few snaps on the poodle walks. On some days I didn’t even bother to take a camera with me.

Things were looking up this morning. The wind had dropped, it wasn’t raining, and there was early morning sunshine rather than drizzle. So we walked up Rosetta Head, or The Bluff.
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May 29, 2016

winter light

Winter has come to the coast of South Australia.

The balmy autumn weather has given away to rain, cold winds, and stormy conditions. We now wear rain jackets when we are walking the poodles. The change in the seasons has been quite abrupt and sudden.

The light is much softer now and it is easier to work with in the early morning:

The digital photographers are out in force around dusk in, and around, the Petrel Cove area. They look as if they come down to the coast of the southern Fleurieu Peninsula for the day. They work their DSLR’s on tripods and stay on the coastal path along the top of the cliffs. From what I can see as we walk past them, is that they are using their zoom lenses to photograph the breaking waves below them.They don’t venture down the cliffs, or get amongst, and explore, the coastal rocks.
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May 24, 2016

moonrise over the southern ocean

Autumn has been quite warm this year with only a few days of rain that suggest winter is an approaching.

This picture was snapped on the evening before a sou’westerly cold front moved across the coast the next day. It was a mild and warm dusk and it was very still. People were out swimming, walking, fishing, playing at Petrel Cove, fishing and running even though it was dusk.

I was returning to the car park at Petrel Cove from a walk with Ari and Maleko just as the moon was rising over the southern ocean south of Rosetta Head, or the Bluff. I couldn’t resist taking handheld a snap.
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May 12, 2016

along Jagger Rd, Waitpinga

Suzanne is currently away walking the Heysen Trail around Burra and Spalding region for a week. I’m at Encounter Bay minding the standard poodles and scanning negatives from local poodlewalks and from the Coorong and previous Mallee Highway trips.

I’m also doing the curation administration for two group exhibitions in September–an abstraction one at the Light Gallery and one entitled Weltraum at Magpie Springs for the Shimmer Photographic Biennale.

This is one of the images from the local poodle walks along Jagger Rd in Waitpinga earlier this year. It’s a scoping image that I re-photographed with the 5×4 Linhof Technika the following day.

It was Easter time, as I remember a male sleeping rough nearby. He’d been tossed out of his home by his wife and he was missing his kids. He spun me a story about how he had decided to travel around Australia on the cheap cos he wanted freedom. He added that being disconnected from the digital world—a digital detox?— meant that he could reclaim a sense of self, freedom and creativity and so lead a more authentic and fulfilling life. I wished him luck in his quest.
Continue reading “along Jagger Rd, Waitpinga”

April 29, 2016

a hot and dry autumn

So far autumn—-that is March and April—in southern Australia has been hot and dry with very little rain. It feels unseasonably warm in the sense of the temperatures being above normal. Presumably, the current spike in warm weather is happening partly because of the El Niño that spread a pulse of warm water across the Pacific Ocean in 2015. That El Niño is now dissipating, spreading the warmer water around Australia, raising temperatures.

These warm temperatures—-there is heat in the sun at 9am in the morning—that is caused by a dissipating El Niño is happening on top of the background of global warming. What we are seeing and experiencing is a continuous process of global warming that is superimposed on to the natural variability. Long term that means longer heatwaves, greater droughts, less water and rising sea levels for southern Australia.
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April 25, 2016

a tree study

This was one of the last images I made on a poodle walk before the digital SONY NEX-7 went into the camera shop to have its sensor cleaned. The sensor had become really dirty on the road trips to the Coorong and to Wallaroos and the camera’s cleaning mechanism was up to the task. I needed the sensor to be cleaned for the road trip along the Mallee Highway next week.

I see the same objects every day, in slightly different light and from slightly different angles on specific poodle walks. This is what contributes to my overall impression and memories of the object: it isn’t a single encounter but a series of experiences. So I select the most suitable–in this case 5×7 format, late afternoon light, and some cloud— rather than going in the composite direction.

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April 17, 2016

early morning

I have been away on a couple of photo trips without the standard poodles. The last one to the Yorke Peninsula was based on camping out, rather than renting a cabin or house, which is quite expensive. I would like to take one of the poodles with me on these road trips but I’m still finding my feet camping. It’s over 25 years since I last camped.

In between the trips we have gone on our usual poodle walks along the coast and the back country roads in the early morning and in the late afternoon. One in the early morning light:

The long summer holiday season has gone and the recreational crowds have vanished. The weather may be cooler and the winds stronger, but we pretty much have the beaches to ourselves once again.
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March 31, 2016

After Easter

The Easter crowds from Adelaide have come and gone from the southern coast of Fleurieu Peninsula.

It is now possible to return to walking the foreshore and exploring the beaches instead of walking back country roads to avoid the holiday crowd making the most of their playtime. There seems to be a lot more people playing along the southern Fleurieu Peninsula coast than there used to be. A lot more cars are cruising around exploring the coast.

Summer is over and we are now in autumn. The light has shifted, daylight saving finishes this weekend, and the photographs that I had scoped and lined up are no longer possibly because the early morning sun has shifted much further to the west. Continue reading “After Easter”