The picture below is a  second  example of using  expired Fuji Velvia 50 with a Zeiss-Ikon Contaflex Super SLR  and  a Zeiss  Pro-Tessar 35mm f3.2 lens.  The  film  was processed in E-6 chemistry at an Adelaide lab,  then scanned by me  using an Epson V850 Pro flatbed scanner with Silverfast software. The  digital file was post-processed  in Adobe's  Lightroom   This analogue/digital combination makes it a hybrid. 

(Pitkin Rd, Waitpinga, 2024)

The picture was made in the late afternoon during the winter months whilst on a poodlewalk with Maleko and it is a part of the low key  Roadside project, which  is a work-in-process. Pitkin Rd  is a no through  local road in Waitpinga, in the souther Fleurieu Peninsula of South Australia  and it leads to several small hobby (life style) farms.  

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The photo below is another one  from my little experiment   in  nostalgic pleasures: ie., using expired 35mm Fuji Velvia 50  film  exposed at 20 ASA, handholding  a  reconditioned  1960s  Zeiss-Ikon Contaflex Super SLR with its inbuilt light meter,  a 35mm f.3.2 Zeiss Pro-Tessar lens,    and  having the  film processed  with  E-6 chemistry  in Adelaide. 

Nostalgic pleasure in this case is pre-digital analogue technology that  was disrupted by digital technology in the early 21st century.  The digital camera industry collapsed between 2010-2012 due to the emergence of the smartphone killing off  the entry-level camera market ( point-and-shoot cameras) which shrunk nearly to nonexistence.

The photo is a cloud study at  Waitpinga  in the late afternoon  during the winter months:

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 I have an ongoing photographic interest in edgelands. Edgelands are usually understood as  the banal hinterlands that exists between urban and rural environments, and they disrupt and  challenge the common notion of beauty in the landscape.

The picture below  is a  recent (2024) attempt at an interpretation of edgelands in Waitpinga. This   earlier attempt (in 2022)  was centred around  the early morning light and it adopts a pictureesque approach.   The more recent interpretation below is bleaker.

The more recent interpretation builds on earlier work here (in 2020) and here (in 2019). It is the bleak interpretation  that is more fitting   to this particular edgeland, rather  than the earlier  picturesque  approach.  It fits with the aesthetic experience of being in (walking in) a  degraded landscape.They are very modest compared to the work of Naoya Hatekeyama.

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I have finally begun the necessary upgrades  to my digital "darkroom" that is centred around independent content creator and  work-from-home.  The  current set-up has served me well for the last 7 years,  but it is finally  reaching its use-by date.  The software of the Epson V700 scanner has a flaw as it won't scan b+w negatives but  I cannot upgrade  it as the O/S of the Mac Pro is too old.

The upgrade  is going to involve  buying new computers around June 2022 when Apple release the  more professionally oriented MX Macs;  plus new processing software  for both still photography and video. The hardware plan is that a Mac mini plus  an  Eizo screen will replace the old Mac Pro (2009) that I have been using for my film photography. Then I will be able to  upgrade the Epson software.     

The first step  in the longish upgrade journey was to upgrade the operating system of the 27 inch  iMac (2015 Intel) that I use for my  digital  still photography and to download new post- processing software.  To my surprise I was still able to upgrade the macOS for the iMac  from  the macOS High Sierra that I had been using to the recently released  macOS Monterey. (I thought that the 2015 iMac would be too old to upgrade to the  latest macO/S). 

My fingers are crossed as I'm hoping that   the iMac has the capacity (processing power)  to be able to use process  the 4K videos from the recently acquired Panasonic SH1.  

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During the last couple of months as the La Niña event  with its cooler, wetter conditions has been weakening I have been regularly exploring  the local Waitpinga bushland in the early morning. This is  after walking with Kayla  along a dusty back country road for 30 minutes or so.  The explorations are all 30 minutes in duration are they are designed to get to know the bushland and to find some suitable material ---possibilities-- for a large format photo session. 

This picture  of some roadside vegetation, just after sunrise,  was made on New Years day. After looking art  it for a couple of weeks I've decided that it is a possibility worth photographing  in the right light.  Light is crucial here.   Thankfully, it  is easy to find, even though it is  just as easy to walk past without noticing it --- which  I have done  on many an occasion, even when I have been looking out for it.       

The bushland  explorations have  taken  quite some time  to uncover the photographic possibilities. The scoping sessions using a digital camera are of  fragments of the bush -- a tree trunk here,  a branch there,  an  old log on the  ground there abouts. I then have to remember where these possibilities are  so that  I am able to  find them on the next exploration.  Sometimes it takes me a week or more to re-locate some of these  possibilities;  some because there are times when I can  never find them again.   

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There is not much in the way  of an edgeland  in the landscape  around the coastal township of Victor Harbor.  The suburban edge of the town backs onto farming properties. It is a similar situation with the other townships in the southern Fleurieu Peninsula.  So it  is difficult to continue working on this long term project. 

However, the  old Victor Harbor Council's dump, which  has been closed down for some time,   has become an edgeland on the Waitpinga outskirts of the township. It is a home for rabbits and occasionally cattle wander through.  I have previously photographed here.  

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I have been tentatively experimenting with an abstract approach to photography in low light situations. as a break from working on the newsletter and the Walking/photography exhibition at Encounters Gallery.   

The low light scenario happens at   the end of the poodlewalks with Maleko when we are   returning   to the car along the coastal path at  dusk. When start to return when it  is too dark to photograph amongst the coastal rocks. However, there is  still light and colour  in the sky over the southern ocean so I can hand hold the digital camera (a  Sony A7 R111) to make a photo.  

A recent  example of the experiment:

It's an experiment because this kind of subject just doesn't work as an abstract when everything is in focus--I've  made several attempts and it looks ugly.   I've also tried  it with the lens wide open and the foreground of the subject  in focus--but it  is a nothing  kind of image.  Nor does it work when there are small pockets of clouds in the sky over the sea. 

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A behind the camera photo of a  small photo session at Kings Head on the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia, which  shows how my photography  incorporates poodlewalks.  The standard poodles are my companions. We walk together to a location and they stay with me when I take time out from the walk to photograph. Then we walk back to the car. On this occasion it was Maleko who was my companion. 

It's dead simple medium format photography using a   "workhorse" Rolleiflex SL66 film camera:--a simple and stripped back film camera from the 1970s.  There are no  technological features to set up  or any  AI.  It's just composition, light and exposure all done 'in camera'.  This allows me to reconnect to the process of slowly making a photo, as well as also requiring me to  decide upon the outcome before the shutter button is pressed.  

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The picture below is of  a  large format photo session at Pitkin Rd in Waitpinga on the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia engaging with the materiality of the  land: fields, trees, creeks, roads, bridges, signs, rural life of this particular place. It is of a patch of countryside  that emerges from a sense of an intimate relationship to a particular ‘patch of land’.  It is more than space---which is an empty  area or a homogenous,  geometrical space. 

 It is true that representations of  landscape has been  unfashionable  as the recent  photographic  emphasis is on the metropolitan urban where most people live. Landscape is conventionally seen as a  anachronistic genre, part of a old, privileged tradition ‘overthrown’ by Modernism and now of little or no relevance in our overwhelmingly urban, more or less progressive, global culture.  It is seen as the mundane representation of a “mere place”;  an inferior sort of environment that is of little or  no interest.    

The above  picture  is photography as placemaking. An example.   In my  case it is part of the  retreat  from globalisation, given that the second great wave of globalization that started in the 1980s is now over with the  emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic.  

The assumptions of this photography as placemaking approach is that place is a social product and that photography fixes the gaze and pins it down.  The gaze works within the limits of both the moment that is photographed and the spatial limits of the frame. The photographic frame restricts the gaze. The photograph is limited by the perspective of the camera  and the subject is forced to subject their look to the gaze of the camera. 

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This scoping image of a landscape  was for a future 5x4 photoshoot, and it  was made on a recent late afternoon poodlewalk during the Covid-19 lockdown in South Australia. The lens on the handheld digital camera  is pointing  towards Kings Head  on the southern Fleurieu Peninsula. 

Landscape here refers to the practice of visual representation of space. Photography doesn't just situate landscape in a physical context,  it also situates ourselves in it. The framing, focus and depth of field  of the camera identify our position as the  viewing subject. When we "see " a landscape we situate ourselves in it.  

The idea behind this coastal landscape  photo was to use this  particular  perspective  to  show the edge or relationship between wilderness of the southern ocean and what is traditionally  called a human altered landscape--in this landscape the agricultural land and its buildings. The privatised land comes down to the edge of the coast. The  public spaces are  the coastal rocks and a narrow path between the fence of the agricultural land and the  edge of the cliffs. 

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