During the high summer in South Australia it is difficult to take photographs.It is very hot and without the the cloud cover there is a very limited time at dawn and dusk to take photographs.

I don't fancy walking across rocks in the dark carrying large format equipment to have it all set up before dawn. Usually I have a location in mind and I  wait for some cloud cover to soften the very bright sunlight.

In the meantime  I make use of the studio. It's a simple set up: tabletop,  window light, closeup rings on a Rolleiflex 6006 , exposures of around 2-4 seconds, a 120 roll of  Fujichrome  Provia 100F and some fruit and  vegetables, such as this avocado.

It has been a couple of  months since I posted on the Encounter Studio's blog. Even though I'd been working on the Victor  Harbor book over the Xmas break I'd more or less forgotten about this blog. I only remembered it when I was  setting up the book's  gallery this morning.  

This is an picture  taken last year and it depicts erosion along the side of the Ring Road. I made a number of studies of this subject as I was attracted by both the shapes and the  colours.  

This is pretty much how I see the rockface in the coastal landscape just west of  Victor Harbor and around Kings Head.

It is  the constantly changing play of light on the rock forms along the coastline that caught my eye and intrigued me. I tend to see the rockface in terms of abstractions---organic abstractions, as it were. Abstract modernism in this  form makes sense to me as a photogrpaher. 

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This is beachside villa is another example of the old style seaside architecture at Victor Harbor at Encounter Bay.

  It  ought to be heritage and preserved from the developers who would pulll it down to build a block of apartments or several townhouses.  It's a premium location as it is on the waterfront. 

This is a favourite area  in Victor Harbor for the poodles, Suzanne  and myself. It is the estuary of the Hindmarsh River near Hayborough, and it includes a board walk through the melaleucas,  a lagoon and the beach itself.  The latter is very popular.

The afternoon in winter is the best  for photography  here. The river is flowing,  the western sun  lightens up the estuary and the colours are quite intense once the sun has gone behind the hills.  

This pink gum  is on the side of the road to the Council Rubbish dump.  I noticed it one day when I was walking  along the road with the  poodles. It was probably the first time that I'd started to look the roadside vegetation as a photographer.

The shape intrigued me so I took a quick snap. I've returned a couple of times to photograph the tree with different cameras and in different conditions. It is significant  moment for me because I  then started to look more closely at the roadside vegetation on the back roads. 

The South Australian  modernist painter thst I have the greatest affinity to is Dorrit Black. She used the unique forms of the  Fleurieu Peninsula landscape  as the basis for  her modernist works, such as Coast Road (1942) and Cliffs at Second Valley (1949). The latter is not online.

The pallette in Black's   work of the 1940s is sombre, the approach is cubist, the forms sculptural, and there is a gesture towards the sublime.

This the photographer on location  in the early morning. The rock being photographed is this one.

I'd come across the rock form  when I started exploring the cliffs east of Kings Beach on an evening walk with the  poodles. I took some snaps and  they looked okay on the computer screen.   So I returned with my film cameras.

It was a struggle to get the gear down the cliff face early in the morning.   The  Linhof Tripod is heavy and bulky and difficult to carry. But  it  comes into its own in situations like this, as it is very  flexible and sturdy.

My interest in the rocks was form and light. Modernist abstraction in photography made sense-----it is abstracting from the  forms in nature. This abstraction of the forms of the landscape  has nothing to do with romantic subjectivity or transcendentalism.  

I don't see many Australian photographers  or painters doing this sort of work.

Old Victor Harbor  prior to the sea change phenomenon was notable for its large and glorious gardens. New Victor Harbor is more about small blocks,  McMansions,  panoramic views and no trees.

 

I pass by this garden each time I walk the poodles down to the beach. It is just down the road from the studio and the white roses are extravagant in the spring. They are in open shade and I cannot resist photographing them.

Agtet is a standard poodle. This is his favourite beach. It is  between Petrel Cove and Kings Beach. It used to be fairly isolated. 

It is now part of the Heysen Trail and the Victor Harbor Council has put a lot of money into building an all weather track along the cliff tops. The beach has now beccome quite popular in the summer months.