a note on photography
It is now generally acknowledged that the photographic image has become firmly established as the predominant form of online imagery, and that photography is now an increasingly pervasive mode of cultural production.
However, the field of photography has expanded to such an extent, with the various social media platforms, digitalisation and the elaborate infrastructure, diversity of technologies and computational processes, that photography's specificity as a specialized discipline or medium no longer makes much sense. Photography is a form of art, not a medium in the sense adopted and developed by modernist formalism in the late 20th century.
We can go further and say that the photographic is no longer best understood as a particular art; it is currently the dominant form of the image in general in western culture.
So we should think in terms of photography in art rather than art photography, since photography plays an important role in contemporary art beyond what we may call photographic art. One aspect of that role was the way that photography was used to change the status and thereby the character of the traditional ‘arts’ of painting and sculpture.
in Melbourne
I was able to spend 5 days in Melbourne last week. The last time I was in Melbourne on a photo trip was 2 years ago and I was photographing under the South Eastern freeway.
The time was divided between a scanning tutorial at Photonet on Wednesday and Thursday for my (5x7 colour and 8x10 black and white negatives) and some photoshoots. One on my own at Footscray on Tuesday, and the second one at Merri Creek in the Clifton Hill/Northcote area with Stuart Murdoch late Thursday afternoon after he'd finished work at the Northern College of Art and Technology in Preston.
As I was travelling light on cheap Qantas flights (2 hand held cameras) the Thursday photoshoot with Stuart was a scoping exercise for a future 5x4 photoshoot. Stuart had photographed in the area 20 years ago and he was reconnecting with that body of work.
I was walking around looking for some suitable locations and times. After walking around a bit in the drizzle we found something to work with near Rushell Reserve in North Fitzroy looking towards an old railway bridge:
It is an edge land shoot. What attracted both of us is the incongruity between nature and industry--Merri Creek was the site of heavy industrial use throughout much of the 20th century, being home to quarries and landfills, and a drain for the waste runoff from neighbouring factories. The best time is in the late afternoon during the winter months.
finding my feet
We are slowly adjusting to the shift to Victor Harbor and sorting through---chipping away at --- the mess of reducing two households into one. Most of the boxes have been emptied and the records, books, furniture and clothes given way.
Setting up Encounter Studio is on hold until the inducted air-conditioning is put in, hopefully next week. Until then, I am working on the Edgelands book amongst a heap of photographic stuff and books piled up around me.
The large format photography hasn't happened yet, which frustrates me, because I have been walking a young poodle pup. But I've started scoping some coastal landscape work around Victor Harbor now that we are in autumn:
This picture in the early morning light was scoped for a 5x4 colour picture last week when I was on a poodlewalk with Ari and Kayla. The next small step is to load up the sheet film holders so that I am ready for action.
the last 8x10 shoot
This 8x10 black and white shoot along the coast west of Petrel Cove, Victor Harbor, was done late last year:
The negatives were processed at The Analogue Laboratory last year. I haven't scanned the negatives into a digital file yet. I have to find a way to overcome the Newton Rings I'm getting from the Epson flatbed scanner.
at Hall Creek Rd
The recent shift to Victor Harbor Life is making it difficult to do large format photography. It has gound to a halt as we sort out all the stuff from the Sturt St townhouse in Adelaide.
I did come across a suitable subject for a 5x4 colour shoot on a recent poodle walk before Kayla arrived, but I cannot get to it for the early morning light at the moment as I am walking Kayla along the Encounter Bay beach at dawn.Nor can I take her yet on a photoshoot as she is only 6 weeks old.
So photography is on hold.
shifting to Victor Harbor
The shift from living in the Sturt St apartment in Adelaide's CBD to the house at Victor Harbor is currently under way. The townhouse will go on the market in mid-January.
All the computers, scanners and camera equipment now reside at Encounter Studio. This means that Encounter Studio will eventually become the centre of my photography, rather than what I do when I'm here at Encounter Bay for a few days every second weekend. What will become secondary will be the urban photography, as that now requires travelling up to the CBD or to Melbourne.
There has been little large format photography done because the shift taking place is teaching up my time and energy. But there is this possibility for an 8x10 shoot that I came across when I was looking through the 2014 digital archives just before the Xmas break for what I'd scoped with the digital camera for large format photography.
I went back and had a look over Xmas after walking the dogs at Kings Beach in the afternoon, but a quick glance indicated that the tree had been cut down. I'll have to check the location more thoroughly. If the pine tree has gone, then that is the end of that possibility for an 8x10.
abstractions: an exhibition?
I've been mulling over where to next after the Edgelands exhibition at Manning Clark House in Canberra in November 2014. What project do I pick up and start to work on? Something that is different from the topographical approach of Edgelands.
I thought that a modest exhibition of abstractions would be an easy step as I can select the images from the archives. They'd be a mixture of colour and black and white and they would include abstractions from the urban and the natural environment. I'm not sure where the exhibition would be at this stage---probably in Adelaide and possibly at the Light Gallery in late 2015.
Abstractions are a bit passé these days ---retro probably, given the current emphasis on street photography. Or its a niche, even though abstraction has been intrinsic to photography. On the other hand, there is the retrospectivity of contemporary art that is nostalgic for, or repurposes, Modernist art. We could do without modernism's main themes: the transcendental, the contemplative and the timeless.
Wakefield House
Another Sunday morning in Adelaide. Another early morning photoshoot. This time it was Wakefield House in Wakefield Street just east of Victoria Square.
I had intended to go much further into the city--to French St which is off Coromandel Place but I couldn't carry all the 5x7 view camera gear there. We are without a car for this weekend, and the first tram doesn't come through the city until about 6.45am on Sunday, which is a bit late for the early morning light in the CBD.
under the South Rd Superway
Ari and I went on a poodle walked around Regency Park in Adelaide whilst Suzanne and Maleko were attending the second session of puppy pre-school. I used the time to look for material for October's architectural theme for my 1picady2014 project. It was around 6pm, the sun was just going down, and we had an hour or so to fill in. So we just ambled around this industrial/warehouse area.
We stumbled upon the South Rd Superway that is a part of Adelaide's north-south transport corridor. We could even walk under the super way
This was large format territory. I could easily use the Cambo 5x7 monorail next time that Suzanne and Maleko go to puppy pre-school on a Friday night at Regency Park. They have several sessions booked in so I could even do some night photographs.