Adelaide Archives - Page 7 of 16

December 5, 2012

tree lines

On a poodlewalk last night I noticed that the Adelaide City Council staff had cut down some of the dead elm trees in the parklands near Veale Gardens. The trees had died a couple of years ago from lack of water caused by the ten year long drought.

The sawn branches and trunks were still lying on the ground last night. I presumed that the logs and branches will taken away today, so I photographed them early this morning between 6.30 and 7.30 am.

Normally I am at the gym between 6 and 7am each morning, but I have decided to take Wednesday’s off so that I can take some early morning photos in Adelaide. It was overcast so I didn’t have to contend with the sunlight.

December 3, 2012

urban grunge

This architectural urban decay is locked behind a fence that protects a private carpark for those working in the lawyer precinct. It is difficult to gain access to the car park because the gate is always closed and operated by a card. I was allowed in because Ari did his cute act.

The site is earmarked for development–glass tower office blocks, judging from the advertising. Nothing much is happening, even though this site is in the heart of the CBD in the central market precinct.

November 29, 2012

remembering a picture

It is hot and muggy in Adelaide at the moment. It is around 40 degrees and it is unpleasant to be outside away from the air conditioning. Ari and I stayed in the shadows in the parklands early yesterday evening and we didn’t walk that far. It was too hot. Rain is forecast to be on the way late Friday afternoon, but I’m sure that, in itself, will not reduce the temperature.

I wanted to use the poodlewalk to make some more studies of the Morton Bay Figs in the parklands. I wanted the late summer light on them and I was thinking about the inside and outside of the photographic frame:

I remembered a picture from a year ago, which I’d seen but never returned to photograph. It was in late summer and when I did return the sun had shifted and the last rays no longer fell on the tree. The time difference was only a matter of a week to ten days. I had made some other pictures then, but I felt that I could more.

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November 27, 2012

summer has arrived

Summer has arrived in Adelaide. The Morton Bay Figs in the Adelaide Parklands are starting to drop their leaves from heat stress. Many of them died during the long drought and those that survived have only just recovered their canopy.

Our poodlewalks have changed now that the temperatures are in the mid to high thirties. We walk after 6pm and we remain in the shade. We avoid the sun as much as possible. THe experience of the drought indicated that the future of many cities and towns, including Perth and Adelaide, was, and is, threatened through lack of drinking water.

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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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November 22, 2012

Nth Terrace reflections

Ari and I went wandering down the west part of the CBD. I had to drop a book— Formless: a user’s guide by Yve-Alain Bois and Rosalind Krauss-— off at the University of South Australia library library and I wanted to scope the new South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute centre (SAHMRI) currently being built on Nth Terrace.

I’ve tried a few of the more conventional or modernist approaches to photographing the SAHMRI but none have worked. I’ve been frustrated by this as the restricted access to the site provides a photographer with little options.

Maybe this can help to make the shift away from a Greenbergian high modernism that emphasises “significant form,” “the autonomy of the work of art,” “pure visuality,” “transcendence,” the quest for “the essential,” etc without embracing the anti-aesthetic position of postmodernism in the arts.

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November 20, 2012

modern urban grunge

Ari and I wandered around the west part of Adelaide this evening. The north west wind and high temperatures had gone as the cool change had come through. The air was cool, it was overcast and the light was soft. There were lots of young people out and about: walking the streets, sitting on balconies and drinking at pavement tables outside the various pubs.

Adelaide actually felt alive–revitalized.

My starting point, the idea that I had prior to the evening walk, was urban grunge in the form of the stalled development around the Precinct redevelopment of the former Balfours site on the corner Morphett and Franklin Streets in Adelaide. The high rise apartments –the Altitude–reminded me of an Eastern European housing commision site when it was being built.

I had the above in mind and I reckoned that Ari would find a way to get through the fence. He did.

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November 17, 2012

on a tram

When I had to return the zapped out modem from Encounter Studio to Internode on Thursday I decided to catch the tram into the CBD rather than walk in. I wanted to take some more photos of the street through the tram window, as it was overcast and the light was soft.

These tram photos are difficult to do because of the constraints of the exercise: it is hard to predict what is happening on the street, and more often than not the composition is lousy. Most of the pictures taken are quickly deleted. I generally take the photos when the tram has stopped at an intersection and is waiting for the traffic lights to turn green. This gives me some form of control in what is a very fluid situation.

It is not possible to take this kind of work in Adelaide on how people move within metropolises. Adelaide is a country town, not a metropolis.

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November 10, 2012

a suburban city

Adelaide is a suburban city with a minimal high rise skyline and minimal inner city life. It still retains most of its urban parkland but its northern and southern suburbs are depressing dormitories. If there is a movement to inner city living and high rise apartment towers then there is also a retreat to the suburban backyard.

However, the traditional Australian backyard is disappearing more rapidly from new suburban estates on the urban fringe than it is from established middle suburbs.

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October 29, 2012

snap your city

I’ve been looking at my archives for pictures of the Adelaide CBD that would be suitable for the Adelaide City Council’s photography competition entitled Snap your city. It has to be a quality 8 x 12 inch print in a landscape format. Most of my urban work is in a square format or a vertical one.

I have little urban work in the horizontal format. There are the odd 5×7 image. I have yet to scan some of these. I’ll scan some more on the weekend and see what I’ve got. I’ve scanned them because I have trouble with the colour of the picture using Lightroom, and so I’ve been converting them to black and white.