Victor Harbor township

The period inbetween the photo session in Melbourne and the  training walks for the camel trek in the Northern Flinders  involved me  photographing in the Victor Harbor township whilst Kayla and  I have been on our  early morning poodlewalks.

We only  do this urban walk occasionally–it provides shelter when it is raining or the coastal winds are gale force.  Since this coastal township is quite small,   this early morning walk needs to incorporate the beach around the Granite Island causeway.

old posters, Victor Harbor

I do find it a sad and depressing township to walk around in the early morning with Kayla.  What is so noticeable apart from the empty streets  are  the number of the small shops along Ocean Street, the main street, that  really struggle to survive.

empty shop, Victor Harbor

These shops come and go and they don’t really last all that long. This is  in spite of the upgrade to  Ocean Street by the Victor Harbor  Council to revitalise the town centre,  and to make it more attractive for the day tourists to stroll around in.  Continue reading “Victor Harbor township”

Xmas

We are in the middle of the Xmas  summer holidays and the Heritage Trail    is now extremely popular, as is the beach at Petrel Cove.   As usual  the recreational  fishermen are out in force in their hunt the oceanic wilderness beyond the Encounter Marine Park for  the Southern Bluefin tuna.  This recreational fishing is still allowed  in Australia, despite the accepted global status of Bluefin tuna as an over-fished species.

There appears  to be a lot more people holidaying  on the southern coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula  this year. Maybe people are holidaying locally cos  the poor exchange rate for Australian  dollar  makes the overseas holiday trips too expensive?

Kayla and I have taken to walking around the empty streets of the township  at 6.30 am for our  early morning walks:

alleyway, Victor Harbor

We wander down any alleyway that we come across that would provide  some shade and protection from the wind.  The alleyways allow us  to avoid all  the runners and the bicyclists on the paths near the beach.  Continue reading “Xmas”

a quick trip

With the power at Victor Harbor of Friday from 8am to 4.30 pm we all drove up to Adelaide for the day to do bits and pieces—-haircuts, dropping off books and records, shopping at the Adelaide Central Market, and taking in exhibitions at the Light Gallery and CACSA. Ari and I were even able to do a small poodle walk in the CBD whilst we were waiting for Suzanne to drop off some old records at ReRun Records and Photography:

Porters Lane
Porters Lane

Whilst waiting we did a quick explore of some back alley ways off Pultney Street and behind Rundle Mall—eg., Porters Lane.

the Atkins film challenge

Ari and I drove up to Adelaide for the Akins Film Challenge on Friday, 13th February. We were driving in from the outer suburbs of Adelaide and were caught up in the peak hour commuter traffic along Goodwood Rd. The challenge starts at 9.15 am when you are handed a 120 roll of Fuji Velvia 100F film (now discontinued due to their withdrawing from the film business).

The rules of the challenge are: you have around 3 hours to expose the 12 exposures; it needs to be returned to Atkins by 1pm; Atkins processes the film; and you return the lab at 4pm to select your best picture. Atkins then undertakes to scan the transparency over the next few weeks, you make minor adjustments in post processing, then return it to Atkins in a week or so, who they then mount it for an exhibition in their foyer of the lab.

The general idea behind the film challenge is that the photography is done in Adelaide’s summer heat and in the harsh, glaring summer light. So it challenges the myth of only taking photos in good light. This time round the day was very hot but overcast and the light was very flat. Ari and I hung around in the car parks in the east end of Rundle Street, and I made a number of digital snaps whilst making the photos for the film challenge:

urban reflections
urban reflections

It was hot even in the car parks. After three hours work I was exhausted. I collapsed upon returning to the lab to hand in the film for processing. I recovered whilst having my lunch at the lab, then returned to the Sturt St townhouse to touch up the walls that had been damaged by the furniture removalists. It was the day of the settlement on Sturt St. The townhouse had been stripped and was awaiting the tenants. Continue reading “the Atkins film challenge”

along Franklin St

The last poodle walk Ari and I did whilst I was living in the Sturt St townhouse in Adelaide’s CBD was on the Sunday morning before we left the city to live on the coast at Encounter Bay. As Ari and I were saying goodbye to the city we had lived in for a decade it was appropriate that we visited a carpark:

Franklin Hotel
Franklin Hotel

As I now live 80 kilometres from Adelaide I will no longer be able to pop out and just aimlessly walk the city. It’s about a 70 minute drive from the southern Fleurieu Peninsula coast to the CBD Continue reading “along Franklin St”

Chesser St

The Sturt St townhouse is now under contract with settlement a month away,  and so it was okay for the poodles and myself to return to the Adelaide and mess the house up.

Ari and I spent early Sunday morning photographing the city, picking up from where I’d left off on a Sunday morning a fortnight ago.This time around it was with a medium format camera and  tripod  with long exposures as  it was overcast between  6 and 7 am.

Chesser St
Chesser St

As usual there was no one around -apart from  the odd male, rubbish truck  and taxi. The only difference this time were the groups of  bike riders in lyrca associated with The Tour Down Under. 

I really should have  been using a large format camera–ie., the Cambo 5×7 SC monorail— for this architectural work, but that had been left down at Victor Harbor.   I needed to bring the iMac back to  town work on for the next month or so that we are in the city.  Continue reading “Chesser St”

a deserted city

Ari and I wandered around the CBD of Adelaide on Sunday morning after returning from a few days holiday in Victor Harbor. We returned to Adelaide in order  to continue cleaning and painting the townhouse before it goes on the market in mid-January.

It was an eerie experience.  We were the only ones walking the city.

Bentham St
Bentham St

Then I realized that a CBD devoid of people was the Adelaide that I knew whilst I lived in the CBD. It is only in the last couple of years that Adelaide has changed in the sense that people now walk the streets. The CBD is no longer just a space for work and shopping since people–mostly young people– have started living in the city and spending their time on the street. Continue reading “a deserted city”

coming to an end

The days of living and walking in the CBD of Adelaide are coming to a close. The poodlewalk with Ari last Saturday morning will be one of the last as the townhouse is due to go on the market in mid-January.When it is sold–as we hope–then that will be the end of us living in the CBD.

Ibis Hotel
Ibis Hotel

We now live in the townhouse in order to scrub it up–clean it and paint it –for sale. The cameras, computers and scanners are now at Victor Harbor, which is the southern outer suburban rim of Adelaide. We are about one and half hours travelling time by car from the CBD. The car, rather than walking, will now be our primary mode of transport. There is no public transport from the CBD to the outer suburban coastal rim. Nor will there be.
Continue reading “coming to an end”

slowness

If cities are now seen as ‘engines for innovation and growth’, then the smart city paradigm is seen to involve the application of information and communication technology, environmental sensors, digital footprints of the inhabitants, manipulation of the resulting data using statistical techniques, and finally the use of complexity modelling and advanced visualisation in order to make sense of it all.

These assemblages aim to promote efficiency, productivity, and safety and to reduce uncertainty in the management of places. Smart city initiatives have been closely linked to the forms of accelerated living that increasingly dominate everyday life in the global metropolitan era. Smart cities are fast cities, efficient cities, controlled cities.

Currie St
Currie St

Poodlewalks are about slowness in a city increasingly dominated by speed and movement, acceleration and flow–wandering into car parks and observing the light on the built environment. Slowness stands for slowing down–for deceleration, detour, delay, interruption, inertia, stoppage and immobility. It stands for decelerated living in the context of the embrace and internalization of a culture of speed and hypermobility (of people, data, goods, capital, etc).

lockdown

Since 1am our town house has been included in the police lockdown in Adelaide’s CBD as part of their manhunt for an armed Rodney Clavell. The police say they have Clavell cornered just around the corner in King William St. We are surrounded by police. It is difficult coming and going.

Sturt Street, Adelaide
Sturt Street, Adelaide

I had difficulty getting back into the house at 5.45 am after walking Ari. Suzanne wasn’t allowed to enter our house through the roller doors at the back of the house when returning from walking Raffi at 6am. I had managed to talk my way in when returning from walking Ari at 5.45am. Suzanne had to come to the gym to get my house keys to enter through the front door. I then had trouble getting into the house after the gym.