people Archives - Poodle Walks

September 13, 2021September 13, 2021

People

Since my last post on poodlewalks my images for the multimedia Rock, Stone, Earth exhibition at the Onkaparinga Art Centre in late September have been printed and framed. They just need to be delivered to the gallery next week. My days have been mostly spent sitting in front of computer working on this review for Light Paths, as well as grinding my way through the texts for the Bowden Archives and Other Marginalia project.

The weather is becoming warmer in September, with temperatures in the mid-20’s on some days. More people are starting to venture out in the morning.

It is not just those regulars who are out every morning rain, wind or cold. Other people are walking along the coastal trails, hanging out on the beaches, playing with their dogs and kids, or fishing and surfing.

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May 15, 2019August 28, 2019

Petrel Cove

It is now much quieter in the early mornings in late autumn at Petrel Cove on the southern Fleurieu Peninsula, than it was in the early autumn. People disappear from the coast on the autumn/winter cusp. . The southern coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula is associated with summer not winter. Winter is very quiet. People leave for the sunshine of Queensland.

During early autumn –ie., March–Petrel Cove, despite the loss of most of the sand, was regularly populated by fishermen, surfers and photographers in the early morning. The car park had usually had about 6-10 cars parked there, and a dozen or so people would be either milling around the car park watching the waves, on the beach, or in the water.

These days the sand has returned, but our 2011 Forester is the solitary car in the car park during the week. This does change on the weekend, as there a lots of people out walking along the Heritage Trail from 8am onwards.

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April 26, 2018April 26, 2018

A foggy photowalk

We had a foggy photowalk when Heather Petty stayed with us at Encounter Bay over the weekend. She arrived late Friday afternoon and returned to Adelaide on Sunday afternoon. Encounter Bay provides a relaxing time away from her work and daily routines in Adelaide. It’s time out so, to speak.

We went on a couple of photowalks together with the poodles along the coast over the weekend. She joined us on the Friday afternoon, as we slowly made our way along the granite rocks towards Deps Beach from Kings Beach Rd, where I had parked the Forester.

It was an enjoyable photowalk as there was little wind, the temperature was pleasant and the autumn light was soft:

The Sunday morning walk was notable for its dense, foggy conditions, which are rather unusual on the coast of the southern Fleurieu Peninsula. The fog is quite different to the more normal misty, autumn mornings.

The tide was also very low that morning, and so we were able to venture amongst the rocks that would usually be inaccessible because of the waves sweeping across the rocks. Kayla did her standing guard thing whilst we photographed. Continue reading “A foggy photowalk”

September 28, 2015

walking Keen Road

The weekend just passed was very springlike with warm temperatures, sunshine and blue skies. Suzanne wanted take us for a poodlewalk along Keen Rd last night, but we left it a bit late to start our and so we didn’t get all that far along the road. It runs over a hill between two valleys–Back Valley and Inman Valley. Unlike some of the country roads in the area Keen Rd has roadside vegetation.

Keen Rd is a section of the Heysen Trail in Waitpinga that she had walked with her group a month or so ago. Most of the Heyesen Trail in the Fleurieu Peninsula region is through conservation parks or farmland and these are off-limits for walking the poodles. We are basically left with country roads to walk along and when we do, we cross our fingers and hope that there there is little traffic in the late afternoon.

Unlike some of the country roads in the area Keen Rd has roadside vegetation. There was little car traffic last night apart from a truck carrying bales of hay from one paddock to the next. It left trails of dust that hung in the air for some time because the air was still— the coastal wind had died.
Continue reading “walking Keen Road”

July 16, 2015

in Melbourne: thinking about Flickr

It is argued that in contrast to the Kodak culture, where a small group of persons (friends and family) share oral stories around images with others, the digital new culture of the image on Flickr, the photo-sharing site, is one where a large-scaled conversation is shared with people that participants don’t know in real life.

That large-scaled conversation shared with people used to be the case with Flickr, but it is less so know. Flickr’s key strengths are seen as photo sharing and storage. Around 2005/2006 it was the best online photo management and sharing application in the world. There was the social sharing which used to be quite active in a community sense because Flickr was a place where people who took photography more seriously went.

No longer. The impact of the mobile phone has meant that people tick the ‘like’ button for an particular image, rather than comment or engage in a large scale conversation on other people’s photos. I used to engage in the conversations but with Yahoo’s recent (2013) revamp/redesign of Flickr I more or less drop an image into my photo stream and run. The new style Flickr represents a “sea change” in its purpose. Continue reading “in Melbourne: thinking about Flickr”

January 26, 2015

at Second Valley

We took a break from our shift to Victor Harbor on Sunday afternoon. We’d had enough of packing up at Sturt St and clearing out the years of accumulated junk at Victor Harbor. So we went for a quick trip to Second Valley on the western Fleurieu Peninsula.

This was the location for the Fleurieu Four Seasons Photography Landscape competition in 2014. You can view the images online, if you register and vote for the People’s Choice Award.

We meet up with Heather Petty at Leonards Mill, and then we walked along the cliffs above the beach at Second Valley with the poodles for an hour or so. The beach was packed with people.

Suzanne, Heather and Maleko continued walking up a step hill whilst Ari and I waited for them on a stoney/rocky beach. Ari’s arthritis means that he can no longer climb hills.
Continue reading “at Second Valley”

September 22, 2014

starting out in the city

Yesterday evening’s poodlewalk was Maleko’s first walk in the city. We had just returned from a week of walking and playing on the beaches in and around Victor Harbor in the morning and evening.

We walked along Sturt St to Whitmore Square, then back along Wright Street to the townhouse. Maleko was a little unsure of himself, as there was so many strange happenings and sounds on the city streets compared to the coastal quietness of Encounter Bay in the early morning.

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May 25, 2014

a red door

Ari and I wandered around Adelaide’s CBD early this morning.It was Sunday and so the city streets were relatively quiet apart from people (young males) spilling out from the nightclubs. The early morning light was flat and drab as there was fog hanging around. There was no early morning sunlight.

We walked to the Morphett Street Bridge then returned to Sturt St via the University of South Australia.

I was looking for material for my 1picaday2014 project and keen to have another look at the University of South Australia’s new Jeffrey Smart Building on Hindley St that was designed by architects John Wardle and Phillips/Pilkington.

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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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September 11, 2012

Leigh St, Adelaide

I’ve been glancing through Anne Marsh’s recent book Look: Contemporary Australian Photography since 1980 (2010) looking at what kind of photography of Australian cities has been done. This work is in the Space section of the text, which also includes suburbs, inhabitants (people in urban settings) and rooms as well as cities.

There is much more photography on suburbs than cities. Surprisingly the photographic representations of cities in the Marsh text is very thin. Disturbingly thin. Australian photographers, apparently, live in the suburbs not the inner city. When they turn to the urban their focus is on people, where they work in the humanist street photography tradition.

There is no text from Marsh on this mish mash of work by Daniel Crooks, Sandy Edwards, Rozalind Drummond, Robyn Stacey, Les Walking, Ian De Cruchy, Simon Cuthbert, Carl Warner and Kit Wise. There is more interesting work on Flickr.

Leigh St in Adelaide has been selected to become the Adelaide equivalent of a Melbourne laneway. It will be closed off to traffic with the hope that it becomes a vibrant space full of people eating, drinking and conversing with friends. The programme to make Adelaide a vibrant and lively place is called Splash.

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