urban Archives - Page 14 of 14

March 2, 2011

homeless

The poodles found this little alleyway in John St in the CBD of Adelaide. I had walked by, even though it is just around the corner from our inner-city townhouse. You see differently when walking the streets with poodles.

The picture indicates how homelessness for mostly single and aboriginal people in Adelaide is hidden and that requests for immediate accommodation cannot be met by homelessness agencies.

This rough sleeping indicates that access to safe and secure housing is not accepted as a basic human rights and the steady decline of social or public housing in spite of the political rhetoric on the issue.

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March 1, 2011

Port River

Another of our favourite areas for poodle walks is the Port Adelaide area. I am working on a project there, and it is a good place for the poodles to explore on their evening walks.

This picture was a study for a large format photography and a number of compositional variations were explored. Whilst working on the project I’ve changed from using a medium format camera to large format ones and exploring black and white (8×10) as well as colour (5×4).

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February 28, 2011

vandalism

One of our favourite locations for a poodle walk is the West Terrace Cemetery in Adelaide. The poodles can roam, I can explore the photographic possibilities, and we can stay in contact with one another.

What is disturbing is the extent of the vandalism–compared to the Melbourne cemetery. The vandalism is widespread and regular. It looks to me as if it is a process of systematic desecration.

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February 24, 2011

mannequins

There are not many shops on the poodle walk to and from our inner city Sturt Street townhouse to the Adelaide Parklands. One of the few is the Salvation Army shop on Whitmore Square:

The shop is set up to make money for the Salvation Army. The goods–furniture, clothes, nick-knacks, accessories–must be in good condition and desired by consumers. To all intents and purposes it is a retro shop selling vintage gems. They are fussy about the quality of the goods that you can give them free and their window display is varied and interesting.

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February 13, 2011

red bag

What becomes very noticeable walking with the poodles is the amount of rubbish lying on the streets and in the parklands. Whereas I would have just walked by without a second look–rubbish is just part of the urban background for me—Ari and Agtet check it out very thoroughly. So I am forced to stop and look:

There is just so much waste.

In the parklands it is mostly the junk food scraps that people leave lying on the ground where they have been sitting. In the city it is mostly packaging and objects that are no longer deemed useful, or have broken down. They have been put on the footpath to be collected.

It was on these walks that I started to realize just how much Australian society throws away as waste. Often the waste is the leftovers from excess consumption. Or the object—including digital cameras— is so badly made that it falls apart and is tossed away. It is not cost effective to repair.

February 12, 2011

shadows

This picture was taken whilst we were mucking around the Optus Building on the corner of King William Street and South Terrace on one of those very hot summer days in Adelaide. You know the ones when the temperature is above 40 degrees C.

We were on our way back home to the inner city townhouse in Sturt Street after walking in the parklands. We were hot, and we hanging about in the alleyway’s shadows trying to cool our bodies down.

As with the earlier posts I used a digital point and shoot camera (Sony DSC R1). Digital is so much easier and more convenient to use compared to film based photography. Though digital photography has supplanted film, the same way wet collodion isn’t about anymore, film has become a niche style of photography.

This photographic moment was about exploring photography, exploring the way we communicate, not about creating pretty pictures (eg., National Geographic type photographs) that people will say, “Oh that’s nice”.

February 11, 2011

paint can

I spotted this decrepit object–it is waste– in Myers Lane on our way to the Adelaide parklands:

I found it lying against the tin wall of an old industrial site that has been sold and is earmarked for urban redevelopment. This will probably be a mixture of offices and apartments as the Adelaide City Council’s preferred model of urban renewal is one of mixed use.

February 11, 2011

lily

This picture has been posted from the snaps that I’ve taken recently whilst on my daily walks with the two standard poodles–Ari and Agtet. Sometimes we stop for me to take a photo, which is what happened in this case, and then we move on.

The idea behind this lo-fi photo blog is that of a visual diary: this is what I am seeing when I’m walking. I stop and explore what has caught my eye. I work at it photographically, then move on.

The walking that is done with the dogs is different to my usual walks as it is much more exploratory. It is the poodle’s walk–that is how they see it— and I am part of the pack. Whilst the poodles check out the areas of their route for smells and food I check them out for photos.