Category: photography

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give way

Urban renewal in Adelaide grounded to a halt with the global financial crisis in 2008. The money from the banks dried up and the commercial and apartment building boom just collapsed. In the language of the real estate industry the property market–residential and commercial– was subdued. This stasis lasted several years–apart from new car parks being built everywhere.

give way

The urban renewal situation has slowly improved. Most of the buildings currently being built in the CBD are primarily high rise apartments. This building is an exception –it is a specially designed building for the Australian Tax Office.

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roadside vegetation

During the Xmas break at Victor Harbor I did some photographic studies of the road side vegetation on the back roads. These arose from searching for a place with some shade to walk the dogs away from the intense heat in the late afternoon. I just started looking at the shapes of the vegetation whilst walking down the dusty unsealed road. I was seeking new content–souping up my creativity or design juices.

roadside vegetation

The country side is basically all farmland—cattle and sheep– and what remained of the native vegetation was a strip along side the road. Even then a lot of that roadside vegetation had been cleared , and what remains is gradually degenerating.

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meandering on the seashore

The poodles and I meandered along the foreshore near Petrel Cove on our evening walk yesterday. I had the old Kodak Easyshare camera in my pocket and I used it to play around with a variety of closeups of the flora on the coast.

spiky grass

These are the kind of pictures that I cannot get with my film cameras as working from the tripod does not allow me to access the various knooks and crannies amongst the rocks. Yet some of the more interesting pictures can be found in the detail of the seashore.

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an early morning urban shoot

I was out photographing the Adelaide skyline between 6 -7am this morning. This is normally the time I am working out at the gym, but I allow myself to take a break from the gym on Wednesdays so that I can do the early morning shoots. In summer this must be done before 7am.

The picture below was taken around 7pm with a handheld digital camera from the top floor of a 24 hour car park on the corner of Rundle and Pultney Streets. I was on a scoping excursion. This time I wanted to I see what the skyline looked like in the early morning light. Would it look as dramatic?

looking west from Pultney/Rundle

I was also checking out to see whether I could use a tripod in the carpark and still be able to get the camera lens through the grill on the side of the building. It was possible to do this with a medium format camera. Would it be possible with a large format camera? Maybe. Next time I go back with the 5×7 Cambo monorail.

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in the moment

We spent this weekend down at Victor Harbor, and the fine, early summer weather meant some long walks with the poodles along the beach that were coupled to me exploring the possibilities at the foot of the granite cliffs for rock abstractions.

cliff top walk, Victor Harbor

I was exploring these possibilities in order to use the 5×4 Linhof. I’m becoming increasingly comfortable with this style of photography and I want to devote more of my time and energy to it.

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without a digital camera

I’m lost without the use of my digital camera. I had initially bought the pro-sumer Sony DSC R1 to enter the world of digital imaging, to see how the digital work flow operated, and to judge the quality and look of the digital image.

Over the next couple of years using the Sony had become habitual, with it primarily being used to study a particular object or scene to see how it looked as a photograph. I’d post some of these images on the web–on Facebook, Flickr or on my blogs—and if the picture looked okay I’d go back to reshootthe object with a medium or large format camera.

Kouko's

The digital camera was my scoping instrument and sketch pad–a pocket sketch pad as it were.

When it was stolen in Melbourne I found myself back to using film and not knowing how things would look as a photograph. I didn’t like the process of taking pictures blind, especially when it came to using the 5×4 Technika in Ballarat before I caught the overnight bus back to Adelaide. I stayed close to what I could remember from my previous trip and which I had filed away as suitable subjects.

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returning to old locations

I’m off to Melbourne this week on the overnight bus with my exhibition print for the Melbourne Silver Mine Inc.’s exhibition of analogue photography at the Collingwood Gallery. The exhibition, entitled Unsensored11 opens Friday night.

I’m arriving Thursday morning and I’m staying on until Tuesday to do some large format urban photography, picking up from where I left off on the last visit.

Kings Way, Melbourne.

This particular picture wasn’t composed well. I was rushing because it was starting to rain and I couldn’t remember the digital image from the earlier trip. The negative also had bad light leaks.

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Adelaide skyline

I’ve been photo-walking the streets of Adelaide these last couple of days. Ostensibly it was to hunt down and photograph the various pasteups down by Peter Drews for his street art project entitled ‘Adelaide’s Forgotten Outlaws! I wanted to do it before the temperatures reached the high 30’s–which they are today.

Then I realized that I was really using this urban wandering to basically look for new locations for the Adelaide book I’m slowly putting together.

Globe, east end

I was looking for locations from car parks that would give me a skyline perspective for large format photography. I wasn’t very successful in my last exploration as I was looking for car parks with open roofs, but these are few and far between in Adelaide. This time I was happy enough to check out the car parks with open grills to see what kind of perspective they offered.

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… if only I could remember

We had a 2-3 hour poodlewalk along the coast from Petrel Cove, Victor Harbor, yesterday afternoon. It was overcast and muggy, and I was looking for locations to shoot in black and white using the 8×10 Cambo monorail. I found one.

I also found this one on computer this morning, when I was writing on Landscapes, tourism, the picturesque for the Victor Harbor book.

rock face, near Petrel Cove

Unfortunately, I have no idea where this rockface is on the coastline. I just don’t recognize it. It looks suitable–and just what I want– but because I cannot recall its location I don’t know if it is possible to both get the 8×10 down there and to set it up.

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