Category: landscape

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along the seashore

The beaches at the foot of the cliffs west of Victor Harbor are mostly deserted outside of school holidays and public holidays so we can wander along them. When we are on a daily poodlewalk along the beaches around the cliffs west of Victor Harbor I’m usually looking out for interesting objects lying scattered on the beach. These are mostly seaweed, dead birds and shells.

Often I wonder what would these objects look like as a photograph.Sometimes I bring them back to Encounter Studio to do close ups. Other times I just photograph them on the beach and move on:

crab, shell, sand

This particular one was constructed. I’d seen the crab on the walk up the beach in the late afternoon, then on the return, I wondered what it would look like sitting atop a cuttlefish bone.

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8×10 and exhibition prints

My days of late have been taken up learning to scan 8×10 negatives into the computer with the Epson V700 and then working on refining the image in Photoshop. The aim is to make a 16×20 print for the Melbourne Silver Mine Inc’s forthcoming Unsensored11 exhibition at the Collingwood Gallery in Melbourne.

rock face

I’ve chosen to work on a rock abstraction that kinda links back to modernism and, more particularly, to the stone walls of Aaron Siskind at Martha’s Vineyard. Siskind’s abstractions emphasized the formal qualities of the image’s lines, colors, and textures.

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8 x 10 photography: stumbling along

I finally started scanning the 8×10 b+w pictures this afternoon, even though I have still to figure out how to use the Silverfast scanning software; or how to process the pictures in Photoshop.

Cambo 8 x 10

The results are disappointing. Most of the negatives are way overexposed; some have light leaks; the old Schneider Symmar 210mm lens that I’m using cannot cover the extreme movements for architecture; whilst the Silver Efex Pro + Lightroom combination that I’ve been using is too crude for the subtle tones of an 8×10.

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landscape: Hindmarsh River

I’ve finally started scanning some of the 8×10 negatives that I’d exposed and then had developed by Blanco Negro earlier this year. This negative of this picture was overexposed–I’m having problems with getting the long exposures right– so I took the opportunity to play around with the digital file.

mouth of Hindmarsh River, Victor Harbor

Since it was an old camera and it is an old style photography that is being undertaken by Encounter Studio I’ve tried to make the picture look like a nineteenth century photo–eg., the work of Captain Samuel Sweet in South Australia.

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Inman River: failure

We are down at Victor Harbor for the long October weekend, and I decided that I needed a break from my rock studies. I needed another little project that I could work on with a large format camera now that I’m aware of what is required. I need something that would allow me to become comfortable using an 8×10 monorail using black and white film, but which didn’t require too much walking with the heavy equipment.

So I’ve been hunting around for a suitable subject. I started exploring the bushland along the Inman River today because it is protected from the coastal winds. But very little in the way of possibilities came of it. It was mostly an exercise in frustration:

waterlilies, Inman River

I went there early this morning on my own and then returned late this afternoon with Suzanne and the poodles. The light was hard to handle and you only have a limited amount of time to take photos. So the scene has to be preselected and the exact time of the day:

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8 x10 photography

I’ve came down to Victor Harbor for a couple of days before I fly over to Melbourne to do some 8 x 10 black and white location photography. I haven’t done any for a while mainly because I’ve had no way to scan the negatives.

My Epson V700 can only scan 8×10 as a negative, and up to now I’ve had no way to invert it into a positive. So I’ve ordered Photoshop from B+H in New York, as this professional software enables me to invert the negative into a positive.

8x10 Cambo

It was overcast and still today so I struggled down to the foreshore with the 8×10 gear (monorail camera in the right hand, the heavy duty Profi Linhof tripod with its centre post and heavy duty pan tilt head on my left shoulder, and the computer bag with the darkslides + darkcloth, lightmeter etc on my right shoulder). I was accompanied by the two standard poodles.

My aim was to take two photos of a particular rock. One photo was in portrait mode and the other in landscape mode. That was it. I struggled back to the car, unloaded my gear, and then took the poodles for a walk.

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Aldinga Cliffs: erosion

Whilst driving back to Adelaide from Victor Harbor yesterday I decided to stop off at the Star of Greece in Port Willunga, walk along the Aldinga beach with the poodles and take some photos of the cliffs east of the remains of the old jetty.

I was returning to an area that I’d started to explore last year with big views of the coast using the Linhof Technika 5×4.

Aldinga Cliffs

This time I was looking at the base of the limestone cliffs to represent the erosion–the eroding cliff base caused by the wave action from the high tides and storm surges. This erosion will continue due to the rising sea levels caused by climate change.

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Port Augusta

I spent a great part of yesterday afternoon scanning some old negatives from the archive from photos taken from a trip to the Eyre Peninsula via Port Augusta. This one of the Payford Power Station was taken on the Linhof Technika 70

Playford Power Station, Port Augusta

I cannot recall much of the time at Port Augusta other than remembering that my photographic focus was the power station. I do recall driving around looking for the best spot to take photos but it didn’t occur to me to go on the tour to get some photos inside the plant.

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Hindmarsh River, Victor Harbor

This study for a 5×4 shoot was done before I left for Ballarat last weekend.It is of the estuary and the mouth of the Hindmarsh River at Victor Harbor. It was taken around 4.30 pm. A few minutes later and the sun’s rays disappeared.

Hindmarsh River, Victor Harbor

I went back the next day around the same time and took a similar shot with the Linhof 5×4. Of course, the man who was fishing the day before was no longer there. It’s not a memorable image, but it is part of my exploration of the coastline in my local neighbourhood and the Fleurieu Peninsula.

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making time for photography

I’m down at Victor Harbor for several days. Family from Tasmania are staying and it is difficult to find the time to do photography. I did manage to do a 5×4 photograph of this image late yesterday afternoon with the over-engineered Linhof Technika IV and this rock study with the Sony point and shoot digitial earlier in the afternoon when I was walking with the dogs:

rock study, Victor Harbor

It’s a question of being selfish to make time for photography. Otherwise it doesn’t get done. The dogs were walked early in the afternoon so that I had the 4-5 pm time to myself. Then I picked up Suzanne from the bus and we went home and cooked dinner for the family.

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