A new studio camera:

It is a Sinar F2, which I purchased from Alex Gard in Hobart,  Tasmania. It  came  with a Rodenstock 150m  Sironar-N lens  plus a Schneider-Kreuznack Super Angulon 75m lens and  a wide angle bellows.  Though the camera doesn't look  that great,  it is perfectly functional,  and  it will do the  simple studio work that I have planned. I have no plans to  take it out into the field as its  sole use is as a studio camera.

It's my studio camera  now, because  the  Schneider 300m Symmar lens which  had been  the  Sinar P 8x10  has  gone  to the Cambo  8x10 for the silo project to give me the  additional image circle to correct the movement problems that I am having with the  240 Symmar. The latter's image circle is okay for landscape but not  so for silo architecture.  That means that I currently  have no lens  to use with the Sinar P.   

The  Sinar F2  is  an economical, and simple  start into the Sinar system.   'System'  here means that  the  camera can be  later converted into a Sinar p2, and if it does, then, then the components of the Sinar f2 can continue to be used as practical accessories within the Sinar modular system.

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This picture was made in a grove of olive trees in the eastern Adelaide parklands adjacent to Victoria Park.  This grove of  olives, was planted in the 1870s,  is connected to early colonial horticulture,  is considered to be a part of Adelaide's history and  is of historical significance.  

I recall that I had a couple of hours   to fill in for an appointment at the optician so I wandered around the grove  with a hand held medium format camera. The pictures were of the trunks that were close to  the base of the olive tree,  and I recall having to wait between  the various exposures  for  the patchy clouds  to cover the sun.

This outtake from a photoshoot at Magpie Springs  in early autumn 2015  highlights how the little details  on the land that are usually overlooked can make a subject for a photograph. It is a photo of natural decay that is outside  the 18th and 19th century tradition of English rustic landscape painting, which in Australia, would become paintings of rural Australia featuring farmland, country lanes and river scenes. 

Rustic landscapes do not depict a famous spot, view or monument; rather their intention  is to represent the countryside and rural life. They do so in an idealising manner. It's an ideal landscape  exempted in the pictures of wineries, food and colonial architecture designed in a picturesque setting for  the tourist with taste who  is able to view, and describe  the land in terms of pictures.  

These would be pastoral landscapes as they both celebrate the dominion of mankind over nature and the scenes depicted  are peaceful, often depicting ripe harvests, lovely gardens, manicured lawns with broad vistas, and fattened livestock. The settlers  has developed and tamed the landscape – it yields the necessities we need to live, as well as beauty and safety. 

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Yet another picture from Halls Creek Rd, Waitinga, which is located in  the southern Fleurieu Peninsula,  South Australia:

This one was even more planned than the other pictures that I made on Halls Creek Rd:---the time was down to the minute in order to ensure that the early late autumn morning light fell across  the twin trunks of the eucalypt.  Without that early morning light the picture would have been dull and flat. I would have walked past the scene. 

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Another picture from along Halls Creek Rd, Waitpinga, South Australia

 I was reminded of this picture after I 'd seen  Ed Douglas's great Connections 2 Images and Objects exhibition at the Hahndorf Academy. The pictures were made with a large format (5x4) camera and they consisted of close ups of logs in black and white. The prints were pigments prints.   

I have made close-ups of  logs and wood--mostly in the Adelaide parklands-- in  a similar fashion, but I've not done this in the studio  with a large format camera.  Sourcing the material  to bring into the studio  to photograph has been my main problem. 

Halls Creek Rd is a part of the Heysen Trail. It runs not south and and it is where I often walk in the evening with the standard poodles. It  offers protection from the strong,  southern coastal winds and it has lovely afternoon light.   

This picture was made in the  late winter. There are fields where sheep and cattle graze  on the western and eastern sides of the road. This, in effect, is a strip of roadside vegetation between farmland.  A lot of the spaces on the Fleurieu Peninsula are like this. Most of the land has acquired capital value and has become a commodity. There is no Arcadian  natural simplicity that stands in opposition to, and a compensation for,  urban life in the postmodern city here. It is the landscape of white settlement. 

It all looks quite different in late spring as the green grass has dried  and it has become a golden brown. It would be a different photo in summer. Late spring, however,  is not a good time to walk along  back country roads,  such as this one  with the standard  poodles.  The dried grass seeds along the side of the road become caught up in the poodle's woolly coats and they are very difficult to get out. Miss one and they spiral their way  into the body within 24 hours. 

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This picture of  porous limestone rocks was made at Venus Bay on the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia in 2013. It is just south of Streaky Bay.  We were on a weeks holiday there with Heather Petty. Whilst there I  avoided  photographjng the panoramic  landscape views of the  cliffs and the Great Australian Bight and focused on the details which fascinated me.   

It had been many years since we had last been there,  and I'd never forgotten this part of the Eyre Peninsula.   Yanerbie, with its massive white  sand dunes that extend up to 4.5 km inland from the coast, was firmly planted in my memory, and  it is a favourite  photographic location of mine for photographing  landscapes in South Australia.  Landscape, currently has an inferior status in the  contemporary visual arts. It's not a fashionable subject in the art  institution. 

The picture was made on the headland of Venus Bay in the late afternoon along the western part of the South Head Walking Trail which offers views of the eastern end of the  Great  Australian Bight. The small settlement of  mostly fisherman  style shacks that hug the coastline of the bay,  borders the headline,  and  the trail  around it offered an interesting early morning walk for the poodles.  

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This picture was made one afternoon along Halls Creek Rd in Waitpinga on the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia. Halls Creek Rd is part of the Heysen Trail,  and  I often walk along there on a  late afternoon poodlewalk in the winter time. It's fenced on both sides of the road, it is protected from the southwesterly winds , and the western sunshine gently lights up the vegetation.

It's a pleasant walk in the late afternoon and  I've made a number of photos/studies  of the roadside  vegetation along this section of the Heysen Trail.  This was one of the first: 

On this occasion I exposed  some old Portra NC 160 ASA film that had been sitting in  the 6x7  film back of the Linhof Tehnika 70 for 5 years or more.  I thought that I'd better finish the roll  of film and  have it developed as I had nothing to lose.  Though the negatives were a bit flat and the colours  were washed out  the  digital  files were okay when  I scanned the film. Some  of the pictures looked a  bit odd,  but I didn't mind. 

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This photo is from an  early morning photo shoot at Hayborough, Victor Harbor in  South Australia. It is looking west to Granite Island. Rosetta Head, or The Bluff,  is in the background. 

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I have been keeping an eye  Mark Kimber's  intriguing  Instagram stream with increasing interest. It includes his own work as well as that other photographers --current and past---from diverse sources. Kimber  must spend hours scouring the internet for material as it  ranges from  daguerreotypes from the 1840s to contemporary art photographers.   

Many of these references are to the work of photographers that I've never heard of:--two examples  from the recent  posts are  David Battel who photographs the streets of New York  ---- and Andrea Monica ----a Professor of Photography at Drexel University who   makes photographs  with an 8x10 inch view camera and  prints using the platinum process.

Seeing this work made me realise  that connections with the work of others are important  for me living in Victor Harbor  in South Australia.   They take me out of the provincalness of  a coastal town in  the Fleurieu Peninsula,  and a  photographic culture  that is overdetermined by most of the photographers  in Adelaide being commercial in orientation.  The result is  isolation and that means that I tend to work alone. 

Connections is not just seeing the work of other photographers online.  Connections also means  goingon photo trips,  connecting up with other photographers and photographing with them.  Traditionally,  this has meant  going to Melbourne to photograph in the CBD,  or the streets in Richmond as I did on my last trip:   

It also meant connecting up with Stuart Murdoch, and doing a topographical photography together around Melbourne's suburbs such as Merri Creek.  I've started to diversify or broaden these  kind of road trips to other places and connecting with other photographers  who work as art photographers. 

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