The spring weather has been its usual turbulent normal along the southern Fleurieu Peninsula coast of South Australia. Cold south-westerlies and showers one day, sunshine, shorts and t-shirt the following day, then back to cold, overcast weather the next. My afternoon walks amongst the coastal rocks with Kayla and Maleko are a welcome and enjoyable break from sitting in front of the computer during the day working on the text for the Adelaide Photography 1970-2000 book.
I have been taking advantage of these coastal walks to look out for, and find, some safe location amongst the rock formations so that I can explore different ways of making abstracts of the swirling sea:
sea abstract
These sea abstracts are a break from the usual rock and quartz abstracts that I usually do when photographing the present on these walks. This should become writing the present as well.
In its place are cool southerly winds, blue skies, calmer seas and lots of bright sunshine. The winter grasses are drying out, grass seeds are attaching themselves to the coats of the poodles as we walk along the cliff top path, and I have itchy eyes and a running nose from my allergies to grass seeds.
Mornings like this are now a memory:
waves, Depp’s Beach
Early morning scenes like this are momentary. They are there one minute gone the next. The light is constantly changing, as are the waves.They are impossible to photograph with a medium or large format camera on a tripod.
The glorious spring weather disappeared completley on the weekend just past. Since Sunday morning strong south-westerly winds and rain have pounded the southern Fleurieu Peninsula coast. The wind has been bitterly cold. Fortunately, it was no superstorm, as they experience with the Atlantic basin hurricanes. I cannot imagine what winds of 180 mph or higher would be like. The winds of category 5 hurricanes must be life threatening.
The local storm caused large waves to roll in from the southern ocean, and these have made it very difficult for us to walk around the coastal rocks on our poodle walks. We haven’t been able to go very far around the rocks at all.
waves, Petrel Cove
It has just been too dangerous for us to walk around the rocks as the huge waves were coupled with high tides. The seventh wave–a storm surge?–has generally been monstrous.
Suzanne returned from Cuba and Mexico last week, and the dog walking has returned to normal, with each of us taking us taking turns in walking Ari separately and Kayla and Maleko together. Though the walking has has become easier, the weather has changed. The bright, sunny days that existed during the four weeks whilst Suzanne was overseas have gone, to be replaced by days of low rainfall and overcast conditions. However, there is still very little wind, even though we live on the southern coast.
The roadside vegetation photos that I had been scoping for a reshoot with my film cameras have yet to result in any reshooting. The problem has been the lack of early morning sunlight around 8am. I am waiting for some clear, sunny mornings to reappear.
grass tree+ wattle, Waitpinga
There is a sense that these humble photos refer to inhabiting this place on the southern coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia. How can this ‘inhabiting a place’ be unpacked?
I’m starting to slowly realize that the snapshot style photography that I do whilst I am on the poodle walks is about the moment. They are photos of fleeting moments that cannot be rephotographed:
Kayla, Halls Creek Rd
They are also about nothing much. Just everyday scenes that I am walking through, or walking past and that I wouldn’t pay much attention to, if I didn’t have a camera and we weren’t hanging about. It is through the ‘hanging about’ that I start to see the little things around me that I wouldn’t normally notice. Continue reading “about the moment”
I am fortunate that Madeline, our temporary next door neighbour at Encounter Bay, has kindly offered to walk Ari on the late afternoon poodlewalk several times a week. That frees me up to venture along the coastal rocks on the late afternoon poodlewalks with Kayla and Maleko. I have even been able to use the opportunity to make a couple of photos of the coastal rocks with my Rolleiflex SL66 film camera.
machinery, Encounter Bay
This does make for a welcome change from the routine of walking along the back country roads on the morning walk and the Heysen Trail for the afternoon walk. That routine grinds me down. Continue reading “a helping hand”
Suzanne has left Cuba and is now staying in Oaxaca in Mexico for 12 days or so before she and Lariane return to Australia.
In the meantime the household chugs along with its daily routines in the balmy autumn weather, with its still, sunny days.We are usually up before sunrise walking along the back country roads:
dawn, Baum Rd, Waitpinga
With the walk over I have time to take some photos with the Linhof film cameras as the sun starts peeping through the trees and lightens up bits of the roadside vegetation. The images have been scoped on earlier walks and the time when the sun lightens up the trees duly noted. So it is just a matter of setting things up and waiting.
Suzanne is now in Cuba before going to Mexico and I’m at home in Encounter Bay looking after the three standard poodles. It is four weeks of walking along back country roads on the morning and evening walks as Ari cannot walk over the rocks along the coast. This is Baum Rd, Waitpinga, which I walk down most mornings when Suzanne is away:
Baum Rd, Waitpinga
It is a no through road that leads to a couple of farm properties that have become holiday houses. The road side vegetation lessens as we approach the entrance to these properties. The owners are hostile to walkers whilst the local farmers in the area are not very friendly. Rarely do they slow down along these roads and say hello or give a wave. Continue reading “Baum Rd, Waitpinga”
Suzanne’s return from walking the Heysen Trail freed me up to walk Ari on his in the morning, and then walk with Maleko and Kayla amongst the coastal foreshore on the afternoon poodle walk. I am able to reconnect to what I was doing with the Littoral Zone.
Unfortunately, Suzanne is not at home in Encounter Bay long enough for me to do a road trip to the Mallee to continue to work on the Mallee Routes The week or so that Suzanne is at home before she goes to Cuba and Mexico is a brief interlude.
Whilst Suzanne has been away walking the Heysen Trail in and around the Flinders Ranges with friends, I have been without internet access for 4 days. It was disconnected on Thursday. Internode , I discovered, was rebuilding the NBN gateway at Stirling because those on the NBN broadband were experiencing frequent dropout–probably due to live streaming Netflix. Whilst I was disconnected I realised just how integral the internet is to my life.
Internode advised me this morning that they had things at their end finally up and running. However, I still had no access. I was then on the mobile phone with Internode’s tech support for 3 hours to reconfigure the Fritzbox 7490 before studio’s computers could access the internet. (We finally realised that the Fritzbox’s wizard was playing up and the settings in the Fritzbox modem had to be manually configured). We are still experiencing problems connecting the Fritzbox modem and the VoIP FritzFon: a second session with tech support this afternoon failed to establish a phone connection via the Fritzbox.
After being connected this morning I quickly uploaded a couple of images into my digital gallery for the Mallee Routes project that I working on.
Whilst I was disconnected from the internet the local boat ramp car park was still being extended, mainstream newspapers continue to sack their photographers, and I continued to walk the 3 standard poodles in the morning and evening. These are autumn days on the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia, and the mornings can be quite spectacular:
am, Baum Rd, Waitpinga
There was heavy mist on the fields along Baum Rd on Saturday morning, and the mist hung around after sunrise. The next morning I took my film cameras with me on the early morning walk along Baum Rd hoping for a repeat, but there there wasn’t any mist at all. Unfortunately, for me, there hasn’t been any mist since. Dam.
