Tag: daily walks

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at Victor Harbor

I’ve come down to Encounter Studio at Victor Harbor this weekend to scan the 5×4 negatives from the Tasmanian shoot. Suzanne is staying in Adelaide this weekend.

Rain squalls were sweeping across Adelaide as we left, but the weather at Victor Harbor was sunny and a cool wind was blowing. Ari and I went on a poodlewalk along the cliff tops and the rocky foreshore. The tide was very high, there was more erosion of the dunes on the beach and the seals were hunting along the coast. There was the odd jogger but no southern right whales to be seen. The afternoon walk was very enjoyable after several weeks in the city suffering from the flu and hanging out in car parks.

looking towards King Beach

I got drenched from a rogue wave whilst I was taking photos of the rocks on the shore. I was so busy trying to figure out why the bloody Sony NEX-7 switches to video so easily that I didn’t see it coming.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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on a carpark rooftop

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.

Ari, carpark

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.

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poodlewalks in Adelaide’s CBD

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:

carwash, Adelaide

I’m happy with the result. It works for me:

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in West Terrace Cemetery

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.

gravestone, West Terrace Cemetery

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.

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a new digital camera: Sony NEX-7

After I finally found out how to get the Sony NEX-7 to take photos with a 35mm Leica M mount lens—-with some help from friends at Photoco in the Adelaide Central Market —-I wandered around with Ari taking some pictures.

The camera is a good fit in my hand, is easily portable and feels like a relatively affordable rangefinder-like camera with a built-in viewfinder.

tables, Adelaide Central Market

Unfortunately for me 75% of them were out of focus, even though I used focus peaking. I found it to be fairly inconsistent or hit and miss. It was as if I got just an approximation and I needed some further refinement.

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in Hobart, Tasmania

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.

Royal Hobart 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.

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beyond Kings Head

We are down at Victor Harbor for a couple of days–the last few days of Suzanne’s holidays. We return to Adelaide on Sunday.The days down here are being spent painting the living room of the weekender and gardening.

The autumn weather is still, overcast and temperate–it’s good coastal landscape photography weather. So yesterday afternoon and early this morning I walked along the Heysen Trail past Kings Head on to the rocky outcrop foot of the Newland cliffs. This is where I’d been photographing before the Queenstown trip.

Victor Harbor, near Kings Head, digital, Olympus, Newland cliffs

Though my Sony NEX-7 has finally arrived, I cannot get it to work with a Leica 35mm lens. I’m finding the user interface to be very complicated indeed. So I took the 5×4 Linhof this morning plus Suzanne’s Olympus XZ-1 digital camera for further scoping.

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