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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Whilst we have been down at Victor Harbor for a couple of days I've been exploring a new location for large format photography--the estuary of the Hindmarsh River. The specific spot I've been scoping is the area of the Swamp Paperbark Trees (Melaleuca halmaturorum) with its minimal understorey of herbs.
The site is easy to access with the 8x10 Cambo monorail, and the Swamp Paperbark would be a suitable subject for black and white. I have photographed these before but never in terms of black and white.