walking in the Coorong

On our return trip to Adelaide from Melbourne via the Great Ocean Road we tacked on a couple of days onto the return journey so that we could stay at Salt Creek in the Coorong. I wanted to go photographing, and to scope the area for the Edgelands project. This stopover was after we had spent a few days in exploring in the Otways.

Whilst at Salt Creek Ari and I walked in, and explored, the nearby edgelands on an overcast day for a future large format photoshoot:

Coorong
Coorong

I had to admit it, but I got completely lost whilst wandering around scoping for some large format photography, and I had to rely on Ari to get me back to the car. I would have remained disorientated without Ari as I had just wandering around completely absorbed in photographing without giving much though to the fact that I was actually “bushwalking”, and that I hadn’t taken any precautions.
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walking along the Old Ocean Road

When we stayed in some cottages for a couple of days near to Johanna Beach on our way back to Adelaide from Melbourne, Ari and I walked along the Old Ocean Road in the Otway Forest. This was a back country road with very little traffic, and so it was ideal for meandering along carrying a digital camera, the baby Linhof, Gitzo tripod, 6×9 film backs and light meter in the late afternoon.

Linhof, Ottawa's forest
Linhof, Ottawa’s forest

As the Old Ocean road was situated within the Otway Ranges but outside the Great Otway National Park, it was okay for Ari to accompany me on the photowalk. This section of the road was about 8 kilometres but we only walked a couple of kilometres before I used up the colour and black film.
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in Melbourne

Ari came with us on the trip to Melbourne. Malek and Kayla, our other two standard poodles, stayed in the home of a dog minder at Victor Harbor. The arrangement worked quite well.

We stayed overnight at Old Dadswell Town on the way over to Melbourne and we all wandered around exploring the place in the late afternoon and the early morning:

Ari, Old  Dadswell Town
Ari, Old Dadswell Town

We stayed at Safety Beach on the Mornington Peninsula whilst we were in Melbourne. During the day Ari stayed at Safety Beach with my sister whilst I went photographing in Melbourne.

Ari and I went for our morning and evening walks together around the Martha Cove marina and around the golf course at Safety Beach:

pond, Safety Beach, Melbourne
pond, Safety Beach, Melbourne

A lot of money is being invested in house, boat and cars in this part of the Mornington Peninsula.

walking Creswick

I was in Ballarat to see the 2015 Ballarat International Foto Biennale and for the opening of the Time exhibition, which was in the basement of the Lost Ones Gallery in Camp Street. I had a couple of photos in the exhibition.

Whilst in Ballarat I stayed in a cottage in Creswick. Even though none of the poodles were with me on this phototrip, I did the equivalent of an early morning poodlewalk around the town. I initially wandered along a small creek behind the town centre where people were walking their dogs:

trees, Creswick
trees, Creswick

Then I walked around the town looking at the old architecture in the soft, early morning light. Many of the public buildings are heritage.
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on the road to Ballarat

I was due to go on a photo trip that was to be tacked onto driving to Ballarat for the Atkins Artist’s ‘Time’ exhibition at the Ballarat International Foto Biennale 2015 early this Thursday morning. But the thermometer in the Mazda 626 stopped working yesterday thereby causing the engine to overheat, just as I started driving to Adelaide to take the film from the Canberra road trip to Atkins Photo Lab to be processed.

The car is now in the local garage waiting to be checked out, the road trip has been postponed and, at this stage.  It looks as if I will be driving the Subaru to Ballarat on Friday. Suzanne can then pick up the Mazda when it is ready, as she will have finished the Victor Harbor camp section of her 3 year Heysen Trail walk.

With some luck I will be able to take photos on the way back to Adelaide. It was to be a similar scenario to the Canberra trip—a photo trip centred around large format photography focused on silos, architecture around Creswick in Victoria and old garages in small country towns.

ruins, Peake
ruins, Peake

With some luck I will be able to take photos on the way back to Adelaide. It was to be a similar scenario to the Canberra trip—a photo trip centred around large format photography focused on silos, architecture around Creswick in Victoria and old garages in small country towns.
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road trips

Now that we are living Victor Harbor we have had to own two cars in order to do things. That means I have a photography car–a Mazda 606– which I can use for my photographic road trips.

This picture of Southern Cross Station in Melbourne was made on an earlier holiday trip with Suzanne and the poodles. We were staying with my sister at Safety Beach on the Mornington Peninsula, and I had gone into the city to do some photography.

Southern Cross Station
Southern Cross Station

This trip gave me the idea of returning to the photo road trip once we had got the two cars that would allow me to be able to do it. Now we have these I can get away. I recently did a trial run to Canberra via Hay last week and I was able to shoot some river gum roots for the Edgeland project that I’d seen whilst walking the poodles on an earlier trip to Canberra.
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in Melbourne: thinking about Flickr

It is argued that in contrast to the Kodak culture, where a small group of persons (friends and family) share oral stories around images with others, the digital new culture of the image on Flickr, the  photo-sharing site,  is one where a large-scaled conversation is shared with people that participants don’t know in real life.

Chiko Chip Shop
Chiko Chip Shop

That large-scaled conversation shared with people used to be the case with Flickr, but it is less so know. Flickr’s key strengths are seen as photo sharing and storage. Around 2005/2006  it  was the best online photo management and sharing application in the world.  There was the social sharing  which used to be quite active in a community sense because Flickr was a place where people who took  photography more seriously  went.

No longer. The impact of the mobile phone has meant  that people tick the ‘like’ button for an particular image, rather than comment or engage in a large scale conversation on other people’s photos. I used to engage in the conversations but with Yahoo’s recent (2013) revamp/redesign  of Flickr I more or less drop an image into my photo stream and run. The new style Flickr represents a “sea change” in its purpose. Continue reading “in Melbourne: thinking about Flickr”

2015 Magpie Springs photo competition

The last poodlewalk before I left for a photo trip to Wellington, New Zealand, was to Magpie Springs to take some photos for their 2015 photography competition. I had already scoped the area I was interested in and Ari and Kayla hung around and waited for me.

log+leaves
log+leaves

Once the negatives had been developed and scanned and I was looking at them on the computer screen it was clear that some of the 5×4 pictures did not work including one of the above. It was also too similar to the picture that I’d entered in the 2014 competition.
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at Magpie Springs

Maleko and I wandered around Magpie Springs last week. It was a break from photographing whilst walking on the beach or sitting next to the computer scanning film for days on end.

The winery and gallery is in the hills just behind Willunga I was scoping for subject matter for their 2015 photo compeition. Submissions have to be in by the 7th May and I’m running out of time, especially when I’d planned to use the 5×4 Linhof and sheet film.

log+blackberry
log+blackberry

It is difficult running an art gallery in this part of the Adelaide Hills region—people consider it to be too far from the Adelaide CBD to drop in, and the passing traffic to the winery is limited. So Magpie Springs have trouble selling their wine, coffee and exhibited art works through door sales.  Continue reading “at Magpie Springs”

in Canberra

We stayed at Banks in Canberra during the opening of the Edgelands exhibition at Manning Clark House.

Banks is on the eastern edge of this car-based, suburban city and is in the Tuggeranong district/valley. Banks is on the edge of Canberra’s outer suburban fringe. Our poodle walks in the morning and evening were along firebreak trails on both sides of the valley. We found the walks to be thoroughly enjoyable and attractive.

Banks, ACT
Banks, ACT

But you need a car to get around Canberra as the public transport to the city is woeful. It’s a long drive to school, work, shops, doctors, or leisure centres. Since the dominant mode of transport is by car, there is congestion in and around the CBD in spite of all the transport planning to ensure the flowing movement of the car.