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:

Southgate carpark, Adelaide

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.

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, 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.

Adelaide: Cheetham salt field

I’ve been meaning to return to the Cheetham salt field ever since taking this aerial picture. I’d been back a couple of times with the poodles on an afternoon walk on the north and west sides looking for a spot to photograph the piles of salt without much luck.

Earlier this week, when the weather cleared for a day, I found a location that I could access to photograph with a 5×4. This picture was taken on the east side of the Dry Creek salt pans looking west.

Cheetham Salt field, Adelaide

There are plans to develop the salt field site into a mixed-use urban waterfront precinct. The State Government’s 30 year plan for Greater Adelaide identified the Dry Creek salt field area and the adjacent Globe Derby Park as a “key urban expansion” site.

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.

Gouger St, Adelaide

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.

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.

Grote St, Adelaide

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.

a long way to go

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:

Bartels St, Adelaide

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.

Adelaide: looking north

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.

Sebel Playford, Adelaide

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.

urbanscapes

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:

Bank St, Adelaide

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.

architectural studies

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.

architectural study

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.

looking for carpark rooftops

Our afternoon walk yesterday and today was spent checking out the open access car parks around Adelaide to see what views they offered of the city for the Adelaide book that I am working on.

Gilbert St, Adelaide

I’m using the rooftop locations of these car parks to work from to obtain views of the city skyline. I’m running out of locations and I need to find more. The locations I explored on Saturday, such as The Frome Street car park, weren’t that interesting in terms of the view they offered of the CBD.