A lo fi visual diary
I flew into Melbourne early this morning.
I started taking photos after I checked my gear into the hotel —Oaks on Collins—along Flinders Lane. I had seen a carpark whilst walking on Collins St with my gear from the Southern Cross Station. I hadn’t taken much notice of it before, even though I walk Flinders Lane each time I’m in Melbourne.
I’m off to Melbourne early Thursday morning on a phototrip.
This will include being a flaneur in the CBD and a large format photoshoot with Stuart Murdoch around the Glenferrie Bridge that crosses Gardiner’s Creek. I had already scoped it—here and here with the Olympus XZ-1 on my waay back from Tasmania in May.
The topographical project around the bridges and the South Eastern freeway is a working towards an exhibition for the Ballart International Foto Biennale 2013.
As I have been slowly transferring the text and photos from the working draft of my Adelaide book on Tumblr to the Posterous micropublishing software I’ve realized that the image bank or archive of my photos of Adelaide’s CBD is rather thin. I actually don’t have that many pictures to work from.
So Ari and I have been walking the CBD on our poodlewalks so that I can use my digital camera (a Sony NEX-7) to build up the archive:
I have had limited success. It has been frustrating as I realized that most of the work has been been up high on carpark rooftops in the CBD looking at the texture of the built environment with some on shop windows and the West Terrace Cemetery. It has dawned on me that I have a long way to go with the Adelaide book.
Another day, another poodlewalk in the afternoon cruising car parks with Ari scoping for some different urban views of Adelaide for a large format shoot. Sad to say I have little to show for it.
This picture, the best of today’s bunch, was shot through the grill of the iron bars on the edge of the car park. I’m not sure that I could get a tripod close enough to the grill to poke the lens through the grill; or even if I would be able to get a large format lens through the grill.
I reckon I have found one location from my scoping for a large format urbanscape shoot with the 5×7 Cambo monorail. It is a carpark roof in Hindley St looking south along Bank St up to Currie Street.
Today Ari and I set out about 4pm to walk from our Sturt St townhouse to the Hindley St carpark to check out the late afternoon urban winter light in this location. It’s a soft light in winter in Adelaide–such a contrast from summer— and I wanted to get there just before the last rays of the winter sun disappeared. I wanted to see what this urbanscape actually looked like. The location looks a goer:
I have chosen this time because I wanted people in the picture as opposed to photographing at night with no people. I was interested in people walking home to the railway after leaving work –looking small and overpowered by the mish mash architecture.
It’s been raining heavily and consistently this last week in Adelaide. Winter has arrived. So I haven’t been out photographing in the CBD much. However, I did find a couple of car parks in Adelaide’s CBD–Hindley St and Playford—- on a poodlewalk last weekend.
I checked them out again this afternoon for their possibilities for large format urban photography using my 5×7 Cambo monorail.
There are some. The open roof of Hindley St car park is one, and it will require some planning as its open roof ohas a wire grill around it, and I’ll need to use a step ladder to get myself above it.
I’m back to exploring Adelaide skylines from the rooftop of carparks for future large format shoots. Ari was quite happy tagging along on his afternoon poodlewalk on this one –ie., riding in lifts and hanging out on the rooftops.
There is a bit of a construction boom taking place in the CBD—an urban renewal now that the money is beginning to flow to the developers from the banks. The views that existed before I left for Tasmania have changed. What were buildings that were having their foundations laid before I left now rise above the Pitt Street carpark roof.
I’ve decided to change my work flow for colour film photography.The old work flow wasn’t really working for me.
Instead of building up six to nine months work and then having it processed at a professional laboratory in one hit, I’ve decided to have the 35mm and 6×6 film processed on the day of the shoot. I can drop it off to Photoco’s one hour minilab in the Central Market on the way back from the shoot. The sheet film can be processed at the professional lab—Atkins Technicolour.
My reason is that it is cheaper, more convenient and I can quickly assess what I’m doing in terms of feedback. I did a dummy run on Friday to see how things would turn out:
I’m happy with the result. It works for me:
The carpets in the studio apartment in the city were being cleaned this morning so Ari and I went down to West Terrace Cemetery to fill in a couple of hours. I wanted to use the time to walk around the cemetery to sort out the focusing problems I’ve been experiencing with the Sony NEX-7 rather than express a general sense of foreboding within a utilitarian culture.
Up to now the focusing with my M mount Leica lens has been very hit and miss. I needed to figure out why and to find a more reliable way of working. 75% of pictures out of focus is not acceptable.
I’m finding manual focusing with the peak focusing technology slow work compared to using a Leica rangefinder. I’m also coming to realize that the Sony NEX-7 is not a point and shoot or a scoping camera for large format photography. It stands on its own.
My last day in Tasmania was spent in Hobart. Since the plane for Adelaide (via Melbourne) didn’t leave until 4pm I had a day to wander the streets with my old Leica film camera. I wasn’t scoping for large format. I was just taking a look at what was there as the New Tasmania features fresher arrivals and returnees, lured by the notion that Tasmania is an optimal testbed for a niche range of clever cultural and economic initiatives.
I started the day with some photos of the view from my hotel window on Collins Street. This overlooked the Royal Hobart Hospital, which is in the process of being renovated, and the Hobart Private Hospital.
I love Hobart. I think it is a delightful city to walk around and explore. It is a city that still retains its 18th and 19th century architecture. In Sydney and Perth these heritage buildings would have been pulled down to make way for the modernist glass towers of the late twentieth century.