Thoughtfactory: pictures experiments journeys

brief working notes on various photographic projects

in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens

I  made some  pictures in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens  using tranny film (Fuji Velvia)  earlier in the year.  It  was part of the Atkins Technicolour's  2014  Summer School Film Challenge.  I was only able to attend the film challenge workshop due to other commitments.  

It was a 40-45 degree day  in high summer and we were  to make our  photos between 9.30am --12.30 pm.  The roll was processed  by Atkins and we then selected one picture from the shoot.  This was then  scanned by Atkins, lightly post-processed by the photographer, then printed by Atkins for an upcoming exhibition.  

My pictures  of bamboo strands in the Botanic Gardens was hit and miss,  and  some of the pictures were badly underexposed. I've just scanned  the two rolls  that I exposed  back then.  I've  quickly converted one of the badly underexposed  pictures  to black and white using Silver Efex Pro 2 to see  if it is possible to  save them:

This  picture  of leaf litter was next to  a strand of bamboo  under some trees that  provided some deep,  open shade and this allowed me   to avoid the summer glare.  I gathered bits and pieces of leaf litter and  some colourful flowers to form a "still life".   

letting things slip

Summer has gone.  I did very little large format photography during the summer when I was  at Victor Harbor.  

I did explore a number of possibilities of representing 'summer on the coast' using  my digital camera whilst I was on the early morning poodle walks with Ari, but I never followed through.

I'm not sure why. The pictures  looked  conceptually promising, but they  just seem to be too cliched even when I pushed towards the abstract. 

a solo exhibition: Edgelands

I've been invited to have a solo exhibition at Manning Clark House in Canberra in November 2014. I've decided to structure it around edge lands as this conception of wasteland is a strand that runs through the  history of my photography.   Edgelands would include photos from Port Adelaide, Andamooka, Chowilla in the SA Riverland, Adelaide, Queenstown Tasmania, Melbourne, etc. Some would large and some medium; some black and white and some in colour.  

 Edgeland  is a way of exploring  how place, landscape, space are represented in visual form and how different places invite different ways of seeing in our visual culture.    It is characterised by rubbish tips and warehouses, derelict industrial plant, dying settlements,  allotments and fragmented, frequently scruffy, farmland. It is an interfacial rim that has always separated settlements from the countryside to a greater or lesser extent. It is the territory where town and country meet and are usually seen as blots on the landscape. 
  
Place is bounded and specific to a location, and is a materialization of social forms and practices as well as affective experience. Space tends to be understood as abstract, unlimited, universalizing, and continuous. Places are often more grounded, serve as reference points in our lives, and have distinct qualities that give people a sense of belonging. In this context landscape refers to  an environment that has been modified, enhanced, or exploited through human activity, and begin to question how we experience and cultivate our relation to the environment. 

Fleurieu Four Seasons Prize

I've started  scoping for work for the  Fleurieu Four Seasons Prize for landscape photography. It's a competition and I don't  have much success in them. 

The Prize  is for a suite of four photos that are taken in the western part of the Fleurieu Peninsula over the four seasons.  I don't know this area very well  photographically so I've started exploring it on my away to and from Victor Harbour.  

On the way down this trip I  was looking for a late afternoon coastal location that would be suitable  for  5x4 film work, and which  had fairly easy access. This location looked a possibility. The picture was made at midday and so the light is terrible.  I will scope  it out in the late  afternoon  on my way back to Adelaide to see what  the light looks like then. 

mistakes

My lack of success with using the  8x10 Cambo has continued. 

 I mucked up some of the 8x10 photos of the marshland at American River. My heart sank  when I saw the negatives and I was distraught when I saw the scans. I had over exposed them.  The light had changed whilst I was waiting  for the right kind off light--a ray of early morning sunshine lightening up the marshland. The light changed during the 20 minutes I waited. Everything had became brighter--it didn't look it to the eye--- and I neglected to take another  light reading before taking the picture  

The colour has been washed out,  and the pictures have a bleached look.  I've  end up with  mushy, uninspiring images. They look ugly. 

All I have is a couple of  digital scoping images:

The 8x10's  will have to be reshot on the next trip in late autumn. In the meantime maybe I can create something from the  mistake? Maybe I can convert them into black and white using Silver Efex -Pro 2, since, unlike Lightroom 4,  it works with Apple's Mavericks O/S.

returning to American River

I'm planning to spend a week at American River on Kangaroo Island in mid-November,  and I've started looking at the  work  that I did when we were there during the summer  of this year. 

I'm looking at the scoping work with the digital camera  to see what would be suitable for large format  photography.  All the 5x4 negatives that I'd exposed  on the last  trip were accidentally cross processed as E-6---that  is,  processed as slide film. We weren't able to save them. 

The above picture of Red Cliffs on Backstairs Passage  is one image that I would like to reshoot in large format.  

I did a lot of scoping of the base of the  cliffs  on the foreshore,  but  the cliff top views work better.

finally...

Sony has just announced  the world’s first full-frame interchangeable lens mirrorless camera with autofocus capabilities, adaptors for other companies' lenses (that means manual focusing) and with 24 MP and 36 MP sensor (without an optical low-pass filter) ). The cameras (the Alpha7 + Alpha7r ) are  weather sealed and   the  price tag is $US1700 and $US2300 respectfully. These are smaller, lighter and cheaper than a DSLR and they have comparable image quality. 

Those, like me, who have Leica lenses but shoot a film Leica and refuse to pay $7000 for a Leica M, here is the option: the 36MP A7r with the best sensor tech of 2013.  For those  like me with Leica  glass, we can now mount our Leica glass on a high quality full frame body with the best sensor tech of 2013 inside the camera without spending $7000 to do so. An M body doesn’t make any economic sense.   

It is what I have been hoping and waiting for.The 36MP FF sensors, with the right lenses, are pretty close to entry level MF ---on resolution, but not tonality. This is a step up from the  NEX-7, which I have been  using  with Leica lenses. It is a disruptive product  that will challenge the historical legacy and inertia of Canon and Nikon, who have slowly  been losing market share. 

One problem here may be that  24MP is at the limit for consistent pixel-level sharpness and hand holding. With 36MP FF sensors you need to to work with high shutter speeds, on a tripod, with lights, or all three because it is very difficult to extract the full 36MP all of the time.  


at Wirrranendi

Suzanne returned  from her holiday in Queenstown--at Carnarvon Gorge and Mission Beach---yesterday evening, and this gave me the space to do some large format photography early on Sunday morning.  

I'd seen this Morton Bay Fig in the Wirrranendi section of the Adelaide Parklands on the poodlewalks when Suzanne was away,   and I had scoped it for an early morning shoot. 

another image

I have found another possibility image for the proposed Victor Harbor exhibition. 

This is the scoping study made with a handheld digital camera --Sony NEX-7---earlier in the week whilst I was on a poodlewalk:

It is a section of a rock face at Kings Head, near Victor Harbor.

 I'll make a  medium format black and white photo this afternoon and then a colour one in 5x4 tomorrow.  There is no way that I can easily get the 8x10 Cambo monorail down to that location. 

next exhibition project

I'm starting to think of my  next exhibition project now that the project for the  Dark exhibition at the Ballarat International Foto Biennale  2013 is  over. 

What is forming is one of black and white landscapes and  abstractions  of rocks from the Fleurieu Peninsula around Victor Harbor and some  landscapes from Kangaroo Island

This would be a mixture of medium and large format work. I already have about six or so printed and framed. That's a good start. 

Maybe some muted  5x4 colour of rocks--high tone--- as well, as these would be mostly great.