In the 1970s and 1980s  a Leica M4 rangefinder   with a 1970s 35mm Summicron lens  was my carry around  film  camera. It worked extremely well and I was very comfortable wandering the streets using the camera without a light meter.  Some say that  this was a classic M -- the apex of the minimal  analog, hand-crafted design. But it  was on the cusp of fading into oblivion in the face of a newer technology of the 35mm SLR from Japan (Nikon F) from the  early sixties. The latter was  a steady trend which increased even more during  the 1970s  and 1980s.    

I used  the M4 extensively for the Bowden Archives and Industrial Modernity project, especially  for the black and white photos in the Snapshots and Bowden sections. 

 I dropped the Leica M4 onto a concrete floor in the Queensland  Art Gallery in Brisbane's South Bank in the 1990s.  The rangefinder mechanism broke and  it could not be repaired in Australia. The camera body  was misplaced and then lost  for approximately  25 years.  The 35mm Summicron lens, which had sat in a cupboard  was eventually  used on a  digital Sony NEX-7  in  2014.  I bought  the Sony E mount so that  I could use the lens. 

Then the Leica M4 body was found around 2018. Unfortunately,   the rangefinder mechanism still could not be repaired in Australia  as there were no  second hand  rangefinder mechanisms.  Over the next couple of years I saved up some  money and I  sent the body  back to Leica Camera in Wetzlar, Germany in 202 to be repaired.  They put in a new rangefinder mechanism  and refurbished  the body. They did an excellent job --- the 1970s camera is like new.  

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This picture of  leaves, bark, and light is from the archives --late December 2018. The leaves and bark were  in the  local  reserve  just across the road  from my studio in Encounter Bay.  

This macro image was made with my  old mirrorless  Sony NEX-7 digital camera which had been outfitted with  a Voigtlander close up adapter and an old  35mm Leica M lens. The combination had only been put together a  few weeks earlier.  My fingers were crossed: would it work smoothly? Would it allow me to forget the tech and concentrate on making photos, just as I could with a Leica M  film camera?  

Though the Sony NEX-7  is very basic and old tech -- it is not full frame and it is not good in low light --- it still functions well within these limitations. This is one way to keep an old digital camera (circa 2011) going--as a second walk around camera to the camera that replaced it --a mirrorless Sony A7 R111, a  Novoflex adaptor and a 35mm  Leica M lens.   

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Though  I currently use Facebook and Twitter to spread the word of what I’m doing with my photography I have realised that I have been cutting back on being engaged in social media. My growing dissatisfaction with social media is  one part of the deep background  changes that are currently happening in the  culture of  photography. 

I post regularly on  Facebook (here and here)  and Twitter  (here). It's  basically drop and run.  I only comment now and again  on posts by friends,  or in a couple of groups where there  is still a minimal sense of online community.  I then leave social media alone.  My reason  is that I don't really like Facebook and  its algorithms, and I detest, if not loathe,  its business model approach to the way it collects, stores, or analyzes its users’ data. Facebook is an advertising business that tracks people first and foremost; it is a Big Tech company that aims to become the operating system of our lives.

This  kind of negative reaction to social media is  probably quite common.  Joel Colberg, for instance,  has an interesting post on  what is happening in photography and social media. His argument  is  that  social media has  had a  destructive impact on the public sphere of online photography.  I agree with him  and so  I suspect would many other artists.  

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Even though my leg is still infected  and I need to continue with the course of  antibiotics,  I am able to move around a little more freely now that the stitches have been taken out and the skin healed. 

After returning home from the  5 day sojourn in the Flinders Medical Centre I have  limited myself to walking  down Solway Crescent to the Encounter Bay  boat ramp. At  sunrise the boat ramp is  a hive of activity now that the channel has been dredged. Some  boats are already returning at 6am--presumably they have dashed out to check their cray (rock lobster) pots, whilst others are going out for a days recreational fishing with their friends.  

I have limited myself to photographing the head and tail lights of the parked 4 wheel drives,  then I sit at a table for a while watching the boats come and go in the morning sun before returning home for breakfast before I begin to edit  this post.  In the late afternoon I repeat the  walk. Since this  walk is not long enough  to exercise  the poodles Suzanne has been walking them  in the morning and the afternoon.  

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This image of quartz and seaweed is in the littoral zone  of  the southern coast of  the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia. This is where I now live,  and the coast is a part of my dally walks in all kinds of weather.  I always take a camera  with me on these walks.

 The image  is a  handheld macro photo made whilst I was on an early morning poodlewalk with Kayla. The picture  was made just before I went on the Wentworth photocamp for the Mallee Routes project, and it was  before the autumn rains came and the weather turned cold.  

Most of the subject matter along this  coast is  in the detail rather  the broad or panoramic landscape or seascape  views. From what I can see the latter is  what most of the  photographers  visiting the coast tend to concentrate on.  I had been  frustrated in the past because  I  didn't have equipment  to  do this kind of close-up work whilst on the daily walks. I had  a tripod and a medium format film camera and  it  was cumbersome  to carry,  and difficult to use.  So  much of the detail is situated in difficult spots that make the use of a tripod impractical. So I used the iPhone. 

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In the light of the considerations in  this  previous post   about the limitations of the Sony a7 R111 and the point and shoot Olympus XZ-1  I went ahead and ordered the  Voigtlander VM/E Close Focus Adapter. As mentioned in the earlier post, this adaptor enables me  to use  my Leica M lenses on the  old Sony NEX 7, thereby giving me with the capability to do macro photography  whilst I am on  the  poodlewalks.  

 I  used a Summicron 35m f.2 lens that was on my old Leica M4, and so I was able to put together a macro camera without outlaying too much money.   I had purchased the M4 in Melbourne in  the 1970s, but it  is badly damaged and not functional.  

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This was made  on an early morning poodlewalk as Kayla and I  set out for an open air  photoshoot,  then a walk along the rocks along the coast.  It was made in the warm  weather  just before before the cold, windy  wet conditions set in.

People were out and about in the sub tropical weather: surfing, fishing, sun baking, playing. I had some photos of saltt ponds amongst the granite rocks lined up, then the weather changed and everyone disappeared. 

Another behind the camera photo of an early morning still life photoshoot near Petrel Cove: 

This open studio set up had been previously scoped with my digital camera. I scoped a number of different locations  to see which worked the best. I plan to do a 5x4  photoshoot with the baby Sinar F2 late this afternoon if the conditions remain overcast.  

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The November Mallee photocamp was  based at Morgan, which is located  in the corner where the Murray River  turns to flow south. The mallee scrub is being cleared and replaced with  irrigated agriculture. 

 Whilst there I  spent an afternoon photographing along the southern  bank of the River Murray at  Moorook. This hamlet  is between Kingston-on-the Murray  and Loxton on the Sturt Highway, and  so it is a part of the Riverland region in South Australia. 

I had briefly photographed along this stretch in the 1980s  (in  black and white)  and then  around 2004 (in colour). I remembered photographing along this stretch of the  river as I drove past it on my to Loxton to do some research in the Loxton public library. I did some scoping on my return to Morgan from Loxton. 

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It took me three  attempts  over three days to photograph this rock pool at Petrel Cove:

My  historical baby Linhof camera--an old   Linhof Technika 70 --- had a mechanical problem  on the first morning as the locking mechanism wouldn't lock  the downturned folding camera bed so I could not focus;  the second morning it was raining; the third morning things finally came together. 

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