We were on the top of Rosetta Head around 7.30 am. This picture is looking towards the mouth of the Murray River and the Coorong. The ever-changing drama was seductive. These were the occasion to make videos I thought. The video comes into its own representing the movement of the light on the sea as the clouds.
It was the light that caught my eye even more than the clouds. Sadly the 5×4 was at home and I only had the digital camera (a Sony A7 R111) with me. The lack of the coastal wind meant that the conditions were very still. This is 8 x 10 b+w territory I kept thinking. It is what I’d been waiting for.
Unfortunately, that option was not possible. I had some stitches in my back from a basel cell carcinoma (BCC) being recently cut out, and I was advised to be very careful not to break the stitches. There was no way that I could carry the 8×10 Cambo monorail and a heavy duty Linhof tripod without tearing the stitches. So it was just the digital that morning.
I did decide to tentatively use the 5×4 Linhof that evening. Suzanne kindly carried the lightweight 5×4 camera pack (one lens, 2 dark slides and a carbon fibre tripod) for me down to the location on the coastal rocks that I had previously scoped and decided that I wanted to photograph.
Suzanne and the poodles then continued on with their walk along the rocks to Dep’s Beach whilst I photographed on the quartz and the rocks. They then returned along the coastal path just after I’d finished making the 2 photos. Suzanne then carried the camera pack back to Kings Beach Lookout (Nakumari Kondoli) where we’d parked the Forester.
The next day Suzanne’s Covid symptoms started to appear, she tested positive for Covid-19, and we went into quarantine. The Omicron wave was sweeping through South Australia after the state’s borders were opened for the Xmas holidays. The national political rhetoric was all about us not staying in our caves, getting the economy moving, living with the virus and personal responsibility.
Putting the conditions in place (eg., a viable testing and tracing capacity) to enable this to be successfully managed amidst the Omicron wave was neglected, overlooked or not planned for. It was akin to let it rip. The chaos that is resulting is due to the federal government’s failure to plan ahead and its inability to prepare for “living with COVID”. They didn’t consider the flow-on-effects on hospitals and supply chains, or I suspect the number of deaths.