A lo fi visual diary
Yesterday was overcast and windy, and as the weather was going to be consistent rain squalls for the next few days, I decided go to the old Mt Lyell open cut copper mine in Queenstown. The only way to do it was to take the morning trip with John Halton’s Enviro mine tour. It was the right decision as it rained all of today.
Little did I know that John Watt Beattie, Stephen Spurling 111, Frank Hurley and Martin Walch had all extensively photographed the region, town and the mine.
Late this afternoon the poodles and I went to explore a location we had discovered around Xmas time. It is around from Kings Head and it is as far as you can go along the seashore before the cliffs plunge into the southern ocean.
It’s a bit of a hike to get there, especially with large format equipment in the summer heat. I’d taken some pictures with the Rolleiflex SL66 around New Year and I was looking at it today to see whether it would be worthwhile to lug the 5×4 gear around.
The mood or atmosphere of the location is that of the romantic (German) sublime—it is all twisted, contorted rocks and wild crashing seas. Awesome wild nature. I need dark clouds not bright blue sky plus a low tide and a couple of hours with soft light. It was overcast tonight with a bit of rain so we will see what tomorrow morning brings.
The Xmas holiday at Victor Harbor is now over. We return to Adelaide and the routines of work this afternoon. The two weeks have given me the space and the time to find my photographic stride, to explore some new ideas and to wait for the suitable weather conditions for photography.
We’ve never spent two weeks at a time in Victor Harbor—its always been either 2 days on the weekend or the 4 days over the Easterbreak. Those two weeks gave me time to find new photographic locations, namely roadside vegetation and the rocks and foreshore around from Kings Head.
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.
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.
My time since Xmas Day has been spent cleaning up, and reorganizing, in Encounter Studio and doing some photography around Victor Harbor early in the morning.The cleanup has also involved me starting to go through the archive of the black and negatives from the days when I used to have a darkroom and I processed my own film. I’m beginning to scan them.
I stumbled across this negative of Bowden in a box of old black and white 5×7 contact sheets. I would have tray developed the film. It was a pleasant surprise to see that the negative was in good condition and was properly exposed. I would have had other 8×10 negatives but I cannot locate them.
The picture below of the boatsheds at Second Valley, near Yankalilla in the Fleurieu Peninsula is in keeping with history, memories and archive as these no longer exist. They were pulled down around 2009.
They were a favourite subject of local photographers and much photographed:—I even think that there was some kind of photographic wake or meet just before they were pulled down.There is an in memoriam Flickr group.
I’m down at Victor Harbor for several days to do some studio photography, work on the text of my Victor Harbor book and to take some more seascape photos with a large format camera.
A phototrip is planned to Second Valley on the western side of the Fleurieu Peninsula, with Lariane, a photography friend from Geelong, who is staying with us in Victor Harbor for several days.
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.
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.
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.
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.