urban Archives - Page 7 of 14

August 25, 2012

scoping Bentham Street, Adelaide

I haven’t done much photography on poodlewalks in the last couple of weeks. I have been preparing work for the Shimmer Festival organized by the City of Onkaparinga. I did manage to take a few location shots for a large format shoot with the Sony NEX-7. The location for the scoping was yet another carpark with iron bars to prevent people in a state of despair from jumping off.

It used to be the case that art photography was measured according to the conventions and aesthetic values of the painted image. The latest defence of that position was provided American formalist modernism. But that has changed now, as in the late 20th century the strict modernist boundaries between photography and other media like sculpture, painting or performance became increasingly porous–ie., with postmodernism.

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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 6, 2012

urban renewal

I’ve been looking at this new architecture in King William Street off and on for a while. These new developments are a mixture of offices and apartments and they are an indication of the urban re development that is now happening in the southern end of Adelaide’s CBD.

I’ve tried a number of photographs of these buildings from the street. None have really worked. I needed elevation, such as the Southgate carpark. The previous shoot was during the fog, but the buildings looked too drab. They needed some urban light.

So I decided to see what they looked like in the late afternoon as everybody was leaving their offices to go home:

The idea I had was the play of the light afternoon light with a darkened sky. That didn’t happen yesterday but the light was there. It looks all too lush for me.

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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August 1, 2012

returning to the Cheetham Salt Fields

Ari and I returned to the Cheetham salt fields early this morning with Adam Jan Dutkiewicz. He is from Moon Arrow Press and the convenor of the Facebook Art Photographers group.

It was a frosty morning and the light on the salt fields around 8.30am was bright and clear. Perfect conditions. I’d gone back to take some pictures with the 5×4 Linhof that I’d scoped on the earlier trip:

I wasn’t happy with the pictures of the salt crystallisation ponds I took with the Linhof. I need to be there earlier in the morning. So I’ll go back tomorrow and have another go around the time the sun lightens up the salt mounds.

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July 24, 2012

Adelaide: Gouger St

My local urban neighbourhood in the inner city of Adelaide is changing rapidly due to re-emergence of urban renewal after the global financial crisis and the influx of international students. Since I may be leaving this neighbourhood in a year or so, I’ve started taking a closer look at it–wandering around the Central Market Precinct looking for photographic possibilities amongst the daily life.

And so we step into the technological apparatus of the camera and its relationship to memory and history in modernity. Often what photograph’s preserve as remembered history is the nostalgia arising from a pervasive and intractable sense of loss from the relentless change of industrial capitalism; a relentless change with its desire to overreach history, overthrow all traditions, habits and conventions, in oder to reinvent the future as the line of progress.

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July 18, 2012

Adelaide: Central Market precinct

I’m back in Adelaide after the brief trip to Melbourne. The smallness of the city of Adelaide was a bit of a culture shock after Melbourne. Adelaide really is a regional town.

I decided to spend the early afternoon exploring the area around the Central Market precinct by walking around the edges of the carpark above the market even though the lighting was too harsh. I recalled that the edge of the car park had grills but not wire netting so I would be able to stick the lens of my camera through the grill if the view of the city was any good.

I wanted to see what views the car park offered of the mixture of old and the new architecture, the historical architectural layering of the CBD, and people moving along the street space contained by the build environment.

I was just looking for possibilities to explore with a medium format camera, hand held, as it is possible to get a lens through the carpark grill, or maybe with a bit of luck even finding an open space with no grill so that I could use the 5×4.

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July 17, 2012

Melbourne: near Macaulay Station

The topographic shoot under the South East Freeway on Monday with the 5×4 near the Moonee Ponds Creek was not successful. It took me ages to get to the Macaulay Railway station on the Upfield line from Safety Beach.

I arrived about 11.30 am, set up the camera, took one picture, then the cloud cover disappeared and the midday sun came out. It was too bright for me as was working in dark shadow on the south side of the freeway. So I scoped the picture I wanted to take and packed it in.

As I was leaving to go to the airport on the Skybus the cloud cover returned. Them’s the breaks, I thought.

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July 15, 2012

funky Melbourne

The Melbourne trip is coming to an end. Suzanne leaves for Adelaide today, and I fly out early tomorrow afternoon. The few days have gone real quick.

This picture is from Thursday when I visited Smith St, Fitzroy. It’s a little cafe near Johnston Street where I had a quick lunch before meeting up with Stuart Murdoch at the Centre of Contemporary Photography:

Whilst at the CCP I glanced through an old issue of UN. magazine, which featured the work of Eliza Hutchinson who was exhibiting some work in Gallery 3.

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July 14, 2012

Melbourne: a hotel window view

Sunday was a day that Suzanne and I planned to spend together, so early this morning I took some pictures through the window of our room in the hotel. We are on the 15th floor of Oaks on Collins, which is in Melbourne’s CBD and are looking south to the Yarra River, Southbank and Crown Casino.

There was sunshine this morning. I took some pictures because rain is forecast for the next couple of days and there may well be no sun tomorrow morning. Without the sun the urban light is dull and flat.

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