signs Archives - Poodle Walks

June 10, 2018June 10, 2018

Victor Harbor township

The period inbetween the photo session in Melbourne and the training walks for the camel trek in the Northern Flinders involved me photographing in the Victor Harbor township whilst Kayla and I have been on our early morning poodlewalks.

We only do this urban walk occasionally–it provides shelter when it is raining or the coastal winds are gale force. Since this coastal township is quite small, this early morning walk needs to incorporate the beach around the Granite Island causeway.

I do find it a sad and depressing township to walk around in the early morning with Kayla. What is so noticeable apart from the empty streets are the number of the small shops along Ocean Street, the main street, that really struggle to survive.

These shops come and go and they don’t really last all that long. This is in spite of the upgrade to Ocean Street by the Victor Harbor Council to revitalise the town centre, and to make it more attractive for the day tourists to stroll around in. Continue reading “Victor Harbor township”

July 16, 2015

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.

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”

July 30, 2014

architecture in Victor Harbor

Whilst we have been holidaying at Victor Harbor, South Australia, Ari and I have been wandering around the streets of the town on our early morning poodlewalks. The early morning light in winter lightens up the town’s architecture.

When walking around this coastal town I can see it changing from a rural/holiday town to a tourist one. It is kept very clean and tidy by the council and it wins tidy town awards.

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July 21, 2014

Peter Drews: Asylum seeker street art

When Ari and I were walking Adelaide’s CBD last week I couldn’t help but notice the asylum seeker street art of Peter Drews scattered around the city. I only saw about 4-5 of the 36 that Drews had put up over a period of two weeks in early June. Some property owners were not pleased.

The posters are simply constructed around the individual stories of refugees and asylum seekers, both in detention and on bridging visas, that subvert the politicised stereotypes in the “stop the boats” narrative in main stream media.

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June 5, 2014

lockdown

Since 1am our town house has been included in the police lockdown in Adelaide’s CBD as part of their manhunt for an armed Rodney Clavell. The police say they have Clavell cornered just around the corner in King William St. We are surrounded by police. It is difficult coming and going.

I had difficulty getting back into the house at 5.45 am after walking Ari. Suzanne wasn’t allowed to enter our house through the roller doors at the back of the house when returning from walking Raffi at 6am. I had managed to talk my way in when returning from walking Ari at 5.45am. Suzanne had to come to the gym to get my house keys to enter through the front door. I then had trouble getting into the house after the gym.

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December 21, 2012

a different way of walking the city

An important aspect of poodlewalks in the city is that Ari, who loves walking the city, takes me to nooks and crannies of the city that I would normally miss. I wouldn’t even notice them as I walking too fast or I have pre-conceived ideas of what I want to photograph.

Ari’s mooching around these nooks and crannies slows me down, and it means that I am able to look more closely at what is around me, rather than just walking through the environment.

I have time to actually look as a photographer at what is there in front of me or at my feet.

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December 12, 2012

Adelaide: early morning

It was my day off from the gym this morning so I went out photographing in the early morning around the Central Market Precinct from about 6.30 am to 8am. It will be about 36 degrees today and tomorrow. By 8am it already was hot and the light was very bright. The city was very quiet between 6.30-7am. People were having their morning coffees and reading newspapers at the cafe’s in Gouger St.

I was interested to see this precinct of the city in the early morning summer light, as I generally only see it in the late afternoon light.

I basically reworked familiar ground to see the difference that the early morning light made. I was pleasantly surprised. The light highlighted the modernist buildings that are emerging above the low rise nineteenth century ones.

The Adelaide CBD skyline is changing from being that of a small quaint village or just another suburb.

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November 24, 2012

an errant meander in western Adelaide

I’ve started to include the western part of the city in our daily walks when I am in Adelaide.

It’s an area that is undergoing change due to the student living connected to the western campus of the University of South Australia, the state Labor government’s investment in a new public hospital and medical research facilities, and the new tramline along North Terrace to the Entertainment Centre. Is an old Adelaide disappearing, as a new cityscape emerges? A vision of a more vital Adelaide.

The real estate agents are talking of a boom. It’s early days. The empty lots, warehouses and workshops are going to be replaced by new housing developments. What sort? High rise? Medium rise? Will there be any concern for the street life? Will new cafe’s and bars spring up?

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August 16, 2012

being-there

After having a look at an exhibition at the A.P Bond Gallery in Stepney I wandered around a bit taking a few photos. It highlighted to me that the intrinsic qualities of the picture was less important than the act of naming it as a work of art and getting the legitimating institutions–museums, galleries, collectors, historians of art etc —to accept the picture as art. What still haunts the art institution is Duchamp naming readymades such as a bottle rack or urinal as a work of art that should be in an art gallery.

I’m not sure where that leaves photography once both the copy theory of representation and an aesthetic canon of conventional forms has been rejected. Are photos functioning to re-enchant the world? They are becoming a sort of magic realism, fetishes or animated objects? A memento mori—ie., a mark of the inevitable passing of time?

August 3, 2012

a foggy morning

There was heavy fog in Adelaide this morning and it took until until midday to clear to a sunny day. I took the opportunity during peak hour to go and take a few picture of my local neighbourhood in the fog. I wanted to use a car park in Holland St that is only open on weekdays for some pictures of the southern part of the CBD.

fog, Gilbert St, Adelaide — fog, Gilbert St, Adelaid

It was a scoping exercise for a possible large format shoot as well as interest in what this part of Adelaide would look like in photographed in the fog. There was no sunshine until midday and so the lack of urban light meant that everything looked dull and flat.

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