Seascapes

I decided to start photographing seascapes when the early morning poodle walks in Victor Harbor incorporated walking up and over Rosetta Head to Petrel Cove. Seascapes as distinct from photos of clouds or of light itself in that the sea becomes more central.

I started photographing with colour film (both medium and large format cameras), but the seascapes looked too picturesque, and rather touristy. Cliched, even when there was heavy cloud cover:

seascape #1 (cloud)

I was after something more ordinary and abstract, rather than beautiful, picturesque or iconic. So I started to use b+w film.

light + walking art

Whilst walking along the coast of the southern Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia this year I have been exploring how to photograph the fleeting character or the ephemerality of light in the early morning. These are photos of light, as distinct from photos of clouds or of seascapes, are a modest walking art project.

I started this modest walking art project in the late summer of 2022 and it continued through the winter. Poodlewalks is not dog walking as such, since the poodles often lead and I follow. In many ways it is as much their walk as mine.

I started this photographic approach to walking art around the time I was glancing through Melissa Miles’ The Language of Light and Dark: Light and Place in Australian Photography (2015), which I had borrowed from the Adelaide public library network.

light, Encounter Bay, 16/02, 2022

Unlike many of the photographers in the book I didn’t see light as a metaphor. What I was seeing on my poodlewalks were the fleeting moments of light at Encounter Bay. Fleeting in the sense that the interplay of light and dark just before and after sunrise was brief: it would often last less than 5 minutes as the clouds evaporated and the darkness disappeared with the rays of the early morning sun.

return to the sea

Winter on the southern Fleurieu Peninsula was wet and stormy with high tides on the coast, making it difficult to access the coastal rocks and to photograph along the littoral zone and continue making abstractions. During July walking the poodles was limited to walking along the paths on top of the coastal cliffs between Petrel Cove and Kings Beach.

This image of seaweed lying on the rocks was made in early June when the tide was low enough to walk in the littoral zone in June. It was during July that we experienced the very high tides.

seaweed + rocks

The photo was made just after we’d returned from the camel trek from Blinman to Lake Frome. I recall it being a joy to walk by the sea after 14 days in the arid Northern Flinders Ranges. Water there was scarce: the creeks were dry and there was just the odd water hole.

cliffs and ocean

On a recent poodlewalk to Kings Head and beyond one overcast morning in February I made a few photos of the cliffs I was walking along. This snap is looking back to Rosetta Head, or The Bluff:

Rosetta Head

The next morning we clambered down the cliffs via the dried up waterfall to the rocky foreshore as I wanted to make a photo of the cliffs and sea with the early morning light on the rocks.

Petrel Cove

During the Xmas summer holidays the population along the coast of the southern Fleurieu Peninsula trebles. The coast becomes Adelaide’s summer playground.

The beach at Petrel Cove will be full of people and families relaxing and having fun during the day, and we will no longer have this space to ourselves.

seascape, Petrel Cove, Victor Harbor

It becomes a space for us to avoid whilst on our poodlewalks. Unless we are there around sunrise or just after. That is when it is deserted.

stormy days

South Australia was  been battered by a violent  storm from the south west during the last three days– from Thursday to Saturday. We  experienced gale force winds, solid rain, high tides  and  surging seas along  the coast of  the southern Fleurieu Peninsula.

storm,  Dep’s Beach

Our usual morning and evening poodlewalks  were curtailed due to  the water cutting off access to parts of the littoral zone. So I could not photograph the water flows.  It was also  too dangerous to venture around the rocks to Petrel Cove  to do some macro due to  the huge waves.   Continue reading “stormy days”

at Kings-Head and beyond

The pictures in this blog post are from an afternoon poodlewalk in 2017 initially to Kings-Head in Waitpinga,  and  then on to a rocky outcrop just west of Kings Head. The rocky outcrop  is on the Coastal Cliffs walking trail to Newland Head and, as a result,  we often meet walkers coming from Waitpinga Beach.

rockface + sunlight, Kings Head

The rocky outcrop is near the foot of the Waitpinga Cliffs,  and it is  not possible to continue walking much further around the bottom of the cliffs. The Coastal Cliff walking trail  from Waitpinga Beach  to Kings Beach is along the top of the Waitpinga cliffs. Continue reading “at Kings-Head and beyond”

water flows

When I have been doing   the evening poodlewalks with Maleko  I’ve sometimes  included sitting  quietly on a rock to  watch the sea water  flowing amongst the coastal granite. Maleko either sits with me,  or  he looks for any golf balls buried amongst the rocks in the littoral zone.

Occasionally,  I    try and make a still photograph of a particular moment of the rapid movement of the  waves surging amongst  the rocks:

flowing sea, Dep’s Beach

The reason that  I don’t  bother to photograph the water, is that it  is usually difficult to make the composition,  and to get the lighting right.  The sea water moves so very quickly through and over the granite rocks–too quickly  for me  to  compose the picture whilst ensuring  that my feet don’t  become wet from a rogue wave. Continue reading “water flows”

at Petrel-Cove

Many of the coastal morning poodlewalks with Kayla incorporate the  return walk along the coastal  rocks  to the car park  via Petrel-Cove. Incorporating Petrel Cove  is more frequent in the early spring,  due to my  allergy to the rye grass growing along the side of the coastal path.  It irritates my eyes and causes sneezing fits.

Occasionally there is a photographer on the beach or a surfer  but more often  than not,  the  only other person in  Petrel Cove at that time of the morning is  the odd fishing man:

fisherman, Petrel Cove

Often it seem as if the fishing men  standing on the edge of the sea with their lines are meditating in nature,  and are  not overly  concerned if they don’t  catch any fish.  I can understand that as I often just sit on the rocks and watch the action of the waves.  Continue reading “at Petrel-Cove”

sea-mist

The sea-mist doesn’t happen that often along the southern coast of  the Fleurieu Peninsula. It happens maybe about once or twice a year,  and it can be quite localised.

The sea mist  briefly appeared early one morning  late last week on the coast:

sea mist, Petrel Cove

When I saw it I hoped  the it was thick  enough for me to photograph some of the granite rocks amongst the seamiest,  as  had happened on a previous occasion.       Continue reading “sea-mist”