Encounter Studio: experiments + journeys

brief notes on experimental photographic journeys

Posts for Tag: 8x10 Cambo

Overland Corner Reserve

 I spent a couple of days swagging  in  the  Overland Corner Reserve  during my  repeat   Mallee Routes photo trip to Copeville and Galga. I stayed  there after the Copeville and Lake Bonney (Nookamka Lakephoto sessions  to try and track  the  Overland Stock Route  (from New South Wales) after it left the township of  Barmera and made  its way around the northern part of Lake Bonney to Morgan.  

The picture below was made for the absent history section of  the forthcoming Mallee Routes exhibition at the Murray Bridge Regional Gallery.  Its location is near the Overland cemetery on the hill that overlooks the floodplain of the Overland Corner Reserve. This floodplain   would have formed part of the Overland Stock Route in the 1840s, prior to it going around the Nor-West Bend of the River Murray at Morgan, then down  to Adelaide.   

The floodplain of the Overland Corner Reserve  is in poor ecological health ---it is  even in a  worse condition than  the Loch Luna Game Reserve, which  lies between Lake Bonney and the Overland Corner Reserve. I presume that this region  in the 19th century was ephemeral --wet and dry depending on the River Murray flooding. With the  construction of the Weir and Lock 3 in  the mid 1920s,  to create storage  for irrigated agriculture,   Lake Bonney became permanently inundated. That meant  both the Game Reserve and Overland Corner floodplain received  very little, if any  flood water.  

processing 8x10 b+ w

With autumn arriving in South Australia  I have  started  to pick up my large format black and white view camera photography, especially the 8x10 Cambo monorail.  

The conditions are right: overcast skies, little wind and softer  light. Well, these conditions  lasted for a few days before  a cold, gusty  south westerly wind swept across  the southern coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula.  

This kind of  large format view camera photography  has been in the background as I do not have a darkroom at the studio;  nor do I have access to one in Adelaide now that the Analogue Lab has closed.  My last session of processing sheet film was done in Melbourne in 2018,  using Stuart Murdoch's darkroom!