poodles Archives - Page 2 of 6

November 25, 2017December 2, 2017

on The Bluff

Whilst Suzanne was away walking the Wilderness Trail on Kangaroo Island with her walking friends, I looked after, and walked, the two standard poodles twice a day. That’s the daily routine with hunting dogs.

These portraits of Maleko and Kayla was made whilst we were on an early morning walk up, over and down Rosetta Head (or The Bluff). Ari had just died a few days earlier, before Suzanne went walking on Kangaroo Island.

We were hanging about on the top of The Bluff having a bit of fun as it had been the first time I’d walked up Rosetta Head in the early morning for ages

Continue reading “on The Bluff”

October 30, 2017

portraiture

Kayla is still on restricted walks. Though the courses of anti-inflammatories has finished, she continues to be walked on her own both morning and afternoon to allow the ligaments around her knees to heal. I walk her in the morning and Maleko in the afternoon. Suzanne does the opposite. We are playing it safe. No rough chasing games.

This allows me time to continue to work on The Littoral Zone project. Some recent examples:– an abstraction; a rockpool granite rocks along the coast; and an open air studio images.

A portrait of Kayla at Petrel Cove:

These solo walks will change tomorrow as I am off on a photo trip to the South Australia Mallee for 5 days, and so Suzanne will have to walk both dogs together. She will need to exercise her skills to prevent them from playing their mad chasing games, or chasing kangaroos.

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September 9, 2017

playtime

Suzanne has gone off to walk the Wilderness Trail on Kangaroo Island. She will be away for most of this week with her bush walking group.

While she is away Kayla, Maleko and I will have some fun, playing with light and shadows:

And I’ll try and do some local photography, start planning another Mallee Routes photo trip, read more about photobook making, continue to edit the essays for the Bowden Archives book and start getting the Adelaide Photography 1970-2000 book (with Moon Arrow Press) off the ground.
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August 31, 2017

Rosetta Head in spring

Spring weather has arrived and the last few mornings have been sunny with minimal coastal wind. With Suzanne away in the Flinders Ranges finishing the last section of walking the Heysen Trail, my morning walks with Kayla and Maleko have been over and around Rosetta Head.

It has seen while since I have done this walk. Ari was no longer able to walk up, over, and down Rosetta Head. His last time was with Judith Crispin when she was staying with us in early 2017 to launch her Lumen Seed book at Atkins Photo Lab in Adelaide. The best that he could do after that was to slowly walk along the path on the western side of Rosetta Head.

Suzanne normally does this walk in the morning, and the poodles jumping up on the rocks at the top of Rosetta Head and surveying the lie of the land beneath is one of the rituals of their walks.

The spring weather has meant that I no longer need to wear a coat when walking in the morning and I have been able to have my breakfast on the balcony in the sun. I have no doubt that the rains and gale force winds will return.
Continue reading “Rosetta Head in spring”

August 27, 2017

along Tugwell Rd

We–Suzanne, Kayla, Maleko and myself–went for an afternoon walk along Tugwell Rd in Waitpinga yesterday afternoon. It was a way to move on from Ari’s recent death. His vulnerabilities in his old age had restricted where we were able to go on our walks.

We hadn’t explored this part of Waitpinga for a couple of years. The last times was when Suzanne had walked some of these back country roads in the first year of walking the Heysen Trail. We were fortunate weather wise as the cold wind had dropped, and though rain from the south west was threatening, there was some late afternoon sunshine. It was a very pleasant and enjoyable hour of walking.

I did a bit of photographic scoping whilst on the walk. I was looking for some possible subjects to photograph with my film cameras whilst Suzanne is away walking over the next ten days or so the last leg of the Heysen Trail in the Flinders Ranges. Continue reading “along Tugwell Rd”

August 25, 2017

Vale Ari

We had to put Ari down this afternoon.

He was suffering from paralysed nerves in his larynx which made breathing for him very difficult. He overheated at the dog groomers yesterday, collapsed with a panic attack, and had to be rushed to the Mt Barker Veterinary Clinic to be sedated.

Today he could barely walk up our drive. He was very weak and he could not balance on the tiles in the laundry–his back legs just slide underneath him and he would lie spreadeagled on the floor unable to get up. He was a month shy of being 16 years old. He lived a full life with lots of walks.

This is one of the last photos that I took of Ari. It was in autumn in 2017 on an early morning poodlewalk along Encounter Bay. The photo is from this session in March:

I didn’t take any more after this.

Continue reading “Vale Ari”

August 15, 2017

between the rains

Recently we had a couple of fine days between the winter rains and the stormy conditions. I’d recovered enough from the flu to be able to take advantage of the fine weather to go exploring with Kayla and Maleko along the coastal rocks between Petrel Cove and Kings Head on the southern Fleurieu Peninsula. This was on the late afternoon walk and I was well enough to take my digital camera to take some snaps and even to do a few scoping studies.

One such snap:

This abstract is an example of what I was scoping for my film cameras when I had more strength.
Continue reading “between the rains”

June 18, 2017August 27, 2018

about the moment

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:

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.
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March 27, 2017January 3, 2018

Ari

Ari is going on 16 years of age and he has slowed down a lot. His hearing and sight are limited, he has dementia, and he is wobbly on his back legs. The course of acupuncture is keeping him going as is the companionship with the younger poodles.

The morning walks have decreased in terms of the time spent we spend walking. We walk slowly along the road down to the beach, shuffling along as it were.

The autumn mornings before sunrise are a great time to be walking. It is soft and gentle time. There a few walkers, runners and bikers but it is pretty quiet. So we can meander and hang out amongst the rocks along the beach . We are able to just enjoy the moments together and he still enjoys having his photo taken.

Continue reading “Ari”

March 23, 2016

at Currency Creek

We all went for a walk at Currency Creek on the previous long weekend–Adelaide Cup Day. I hadn’t been there for ages–several years in fact. The photography that I did then was rather disappointing, and I hadn’t been all that keen on returning. This was a family outing:

On previous visits we have had the place to ourselves. Not this time. It was packed. People were camping in the picnic ground that is opposite the historic Kingsbrook estate. There are now a lot more people touring around and visiting the Fleurieu Peninsula these days.

Continue reading “at Currency Creek”