A lo fi visual diary
A recent afternoon trip to Magpie Springs and Kuitpo Forest gave me spaced to take a few photos even though I had 3 dogs with me. Unfortunately the pictures were just quick snaps:
Even though I had the baby Linhof in the boot of the car it was impossible to use a view camera on a tripod with the three dogs racing all over the place. I had to keep an eye on them and not on the ground glass with my head under a dark cloth. Continue reading “a small excursion”
I’ve accepted the constraints of walking three standard poodles on my own whilst Suzanne walks the Larapinta Trail, and I just go with the flow. It is easier to go with the flow rather than be frustrated by the chaos.
Our early morning walks are along the old Victor Harbor railway line in Hayborough. Maleko and Kayla can play their crazy chasey games in and around the old Port Elliot-Victor Harbor railway line, Ari and I stroll along, my feet stay dry, and I can take a few photos.
It’s better than the beach, which is where everyone is walking in the early morning with their dogs. If I walk on the beach most of my time is spend minding the dogs and preventing them from getting up to mischief with other dogs and people.
Continue reading “along an old railway line”
Suzanne leaves Victor Harbor today for 2 weeks or so walk to the Larapinta Trail in the western Macdonnell Ranges, and then go to explore other areas east and west of Alice Springs, such as Kings Canyon. I’ve just dropped Suzanne off at the Seaford railway station so that she can catch the train to Adelaide to stay overnight with her friend Sally, before they both catch the Qantas flight to Alice Springs tomorrow morning.
My task is to look after the 3 dogs at Victor Harbor. Our walks in the morning and evening will be in limited areas in order to keep Kayla and Maleko crazy chase and play games contained and controlled. So my photography is going to very limited, unless I can find a way to do it without having the dogs in tow. I cannot do large format tripod based photography with 3 dogs racing around the place.
The best that I can do is some handheld snaps on the walk. The above picture is an example. I was driving Ari and Kayla to the Victor Harbor beach for a dawn walk when I saw this view as I started to drive along Franklin Parade towards the Victor Harbor township. I stopped the car, took a snap, jumped back in the car, and continued driving to the township. The trouble is, not every morning is like this one.
Continue reading “living with constraints”
During the recent week of rain and wind we mostly walked around the Victor Harbor township in the morning and along back country roads in the afternoon. I’d badly damaged my back when walking around Wellington and I had great difficulty in walking, due to the pain.
I needed easy walking terrain whilst my back was slowly beginning to heal. So no stairs or steps and no climbing over rocks on the foreshore.
I couldn’t walk for that long so I just explored the afternoon light on the roadside vegetation. Maybe I could use my limited mobility to uncover some photographic possibilities amongst a landscape of pasture and scrubland left after the clearing during the white settlement.Maybe I could reconnect with this body of work.
Continue reading “taking it easy”
Winter is fast closing in. The clear, still, sunny autumn mornings are fast becoming a memory.
We have had a week or so of strong winds, storms, on and off showers throughout the day, lots of cloud cover and the occasional sunny period. So we have increasingly avoided the southern beaches in our morning and evening walks in order to seek shelter from the incessant wind.
The poodles love the bush for it is full of fresh animal smells, but I find it extremely difficult to photograph the chaotic messiness of the bush or woodlands whilst we are walking through it. It is almost impossible to try and impose strict visual order upon this subject matter since the clear visual patterns are not really there.
The last poodlewalk before I left for a photo trip to Wellington, New Zealand, was to Magpie Springs to take some photos for their 2015 photography competition. I had already scoped the area I was interested in and Ari and Kayla hung around and waited for me.
Once the negatives had been developed and scanned and I was looking at them on the computer screen it was clear that some of the 5×4 pictures did not work including one of the above. It was also too similar to the picture that I’d entered in the 2014 competition.
Continue reading “2015 Magpie Springs photo competition”
Most of the early morning walks these late autumn days are with Ari and Kayla and are are in and around the Victor Harbor Beach area or along the Hayborough beach. It’s easy. There are few people around, there is very little junk food, dead birds or decaying fish, the wind is low and the sun rises onto the beaches at sunrise.
There is not much photography taking place on these walks. Only a few pictures of the ongoing version of the sand dunes around Hayborough, but this does not effect any of the holiday homes as they are on the cliffs above the beach, and there is a railway line between the beach and the base of the cliffs.
Continue reading “cruising along”
Suzanne and I have started looking for ways in which one person can walk the three poodles together. It is a question of avoiding the beach where Kayla and Maleko go into their crazy chasing games, and looking for contained areas that are full of smells so they forget about their mad play. This often becomes destructive and is beyond the control of one person.
We have found one–a back country road near Encounter Studio which has very little traffic. Halls Creek Rd is an area where the poodles can walk freely off lead:
Halls Creek Rd is bounded by fences and, as it has a number of kangaroo crossings, the poodles spend their time checking things out. Continue reading “contained walks”
Maleko and I wandered around Magpie Springs last week. It was a break from photographing whilst walking on the beach or sitting next to the computer scanning film for days on end.
The winery and gallery is in the hills just behind Willunga I was scoping for subject matter for their 2015 photo compeition. Submissions have to be in by the 7th May and I’m running out of time, especially when I’d planned to use the 5×4 Linhof and sheet film.
It is difficult running an art gallery in this part of the Adelaide Hills region—people consider it to be too far from the Adelaide CBD to drop in, and the passing traffic to the winery is limited. So Magpie Springs have trouble selling their wine, coffee and exhibited art works through door sales. Continue reading “at Magpie Springs”
We have had visitors from Melbourne staying at our place in Victor Harbor over Easter. Since they are both friends and photographers one of the days during Easter was devoted to a photography excursion to the western Fleurieu Peninsula coast.
We went to see the exhibition of the Fleurieu Four Seasons Prize for Landscape Photography at the Normanville Beach Gallery and Cafe Foreshore, and then spent time exploring the coastal bays and settlements that form part of the western Fleurieu Peninsula.
The exploration included Lady Bay, Wirrina Cove, Second Valley, Rapid Bay, then finally Delamare before returning to Victor Harbor along the Range Road. It was very bright and sunny in the afternoon, and these kind of conditions are not good for photography. Continue reading “Lady Bay”