A lo fi visual diary
After much indecision I’ve decided to do a little project in the Wirranendi section of the Adelaide parklands. What tipped the scales in favour was the wetlands as this could become the focus of the project rather than the public sculpture.
The urban forest just wasn’t enough on its own, even though some of the work is fascinating. But it requires the use of a large format camera to get the subtle detail.
It has been raining all day in Adelaide and I haven’t been outside to do photography. Apart from visiting skin specialists and walking the dogs late this afternoon I have been inside the Sturt St office blogging on the US debt crisis and going through my Andamooka archives for light relief.
I am beginning to think that the photos in the archive are good enough could become a modest project in themselves. A project in Australian topographics. An aesthetic of the banal or the mundane for the philosophically minded.
This image is from the archives that I have just scanned into the Mac Pro desktop computer.It was taken around 2002 on a trip to Venus Bay, which is on the west coast of Eyre Peninsula in South Australia. Agtet must have been 3-4 months old as he still had his puppy coat.
I can remember the shutter on the newly acquired Rolleiflex SL66 jamming up on the very first shot–I was photographing plants on the shadow side of the sand dunes— and then having to rely on the ever reliable Rolleiflex TLR.
I have spent the last day or so scanning some old medium format negatives that I’d taken with my old Linhof medium format camera–Technika 70. The results have been disappointing.
The 6×9 camera back wasn’t working properly, the colours are all over the place, some of the images are underexposed and out of focus, and Silver Efex Pro will not work on them for some reason.
It’s all rather humbling. The mostly landscape pictures of the Coorong and the River Murray’s wetlands looked quite okay on the contact sheets, but unlike the work at Andamooka that was done with a Rolleiflex TLR, they have failed to live up to their promise.
Normally my photography is within the crisp focus big depth of field tradition and I usually avoid the out of focus smudgy lens look. This image happened because a wave crashed over the top of me whilst I was photography a rock, drenching me in the process.
I pulled the camera away but it still got wet the camera in the process.The tide was high and the seas were big that day.
Though I dried the camera body and the lens,the latter was still rather smudgy when I was taking some shots of flowing water. That kind of picture is the result. It’s a poetic approach to photography that emphasises subjectivity.
The picture below is from the archives. It was taken on a trip that Suzanne and I did to Andamooka circa 2001. Agtet was just a pup then and Ari had yet to join the family. We stayed in the shanty mining town for a few days at a friends place. It was a very dusty and hot place from memory.
I used to wander around the area with a Rolleiflex 3.5F TLR in the early morning and in the late afternoon light. Then I’d explore the shanty town with the old Leica during the day. These were the days way before I owned a digital camera, or even knew about them.
The negatives (the 6×6 and 35m) plus the contact sheets have sat in a brief case beside the desk all this time. Now that I have acquired an Epson V700 scanner I can finally do something with them.
The solar photovoltaic electricity system is up and running and I was able to concentrate on doing some photography. This is was the subject that I had in mind for a large format shot, and so I went and checked it out late this afternoon in terms of lighting and composition.
It is a boardwalk along the Hindmarsh River just before it enters the sea at Victor Harbor. So the melaleucas are part of the river’s estuary. I’m standing next to the old railway track. I have room to work in to do either a 5×7 in colour of and an 8×10 in black and white.
This is my reason for being down at Victor Harbor this week–I’m overseeing the installation of photovoltaic solar panels on the roof of the weekender at Victor Harbor. The solar photovoltaic electricity system is costing us an arm and leg re the capital required, as it is a big (2.4kw) system.
The solar panels absorb light and turn that into electricity via a converter that is plugged into a standard ETSA household fuse box that is connected to the national electricity grid. So we are both taking power from the grid and putting power back into the grid.
The assumption is that with the feed in tariff means this size solar power plant on our roof will generate more energy than we use, and this will then–hopefully—provide a bit of an income from the weekender through the feed-in-tariff.
I’m down at Victor Harbor for a couple of days having some photovoltaic solar panels placed on the roof of the weekender. As I had to hang around the house for the tradies I was only able to manage a walk along the cliff tops and beach early this afternoon with the dogs.
It is winter. Even though the rain had stopped, there was a bitterly cold wind blowing in from the south west and the sea was turbulent. Even so, there were lots of people walking their dogs, or strolling along the cliff tops, and even exploring the little beaches.
I wish that I had used the time to try to include people in the landscape, but my mind was on the tradies and solar panels not photography. The solar panel job would not be finished today. It’s a big job. So habit took over.
Whilst Suzanne is having fun in Rome I drove down to Victor Harbor for a couple of days to work on some archived images to submit to some local photographic competitions. I am interested in the credit given at a prof lab for processing my the backlog of my medium format work.
This is where where poodlewalk happened this afternoon. We see it as our backyard to so speak as we are walkalong or around there each morning and evening:
There is such a sense of space after being confined in the city.