I started  on the  large format silo project yesterday evening with a  black and white   shoot of the silos at Talem Bend using the 8x10 Cambo in late afternoon.  However,  the conditions were not ideal  for this kind of photoshoot.  

The sun is now quite intense even before it disappears below the horizon, and the clouds that I wanted  for cloud cover did not eventuate.   There were  clouds  in the sky when we were in Adelaide,  and it looked promising as we drove along the south-eastern freeway to Talem Bend.   But the clouds  hugged the coastline of the Fleurieu Peninsula coast,  rather than moving inland across the Murraylands.   So, to my dismay,  it was clear blue sky at the silo location.  

The next stage of the silo project was  organized today whilst  I was in Adelaide having  a coffee with Peter Barnes and Gilbert Roe at Cafe Troppo in Whitmore Square.   This stage  consists of   a photo trip with Gilbert  in mid-October 2015  along the Malle Highway ---probably the section between Pinaroo in South Australia and Toolebuc in Victoria. We have agreed to  camp at Ouyen and  to make trips  out from that base.  Gilbert will be using his pinhole camera.  

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I was in Ballarat for a few days to see the Ballarat International Foto  Biennale 2015. I had some photos in the Time exhibition  by the Atkins  Photo Artists,  which was  in the basement of the Lost Ones Gallery. The exhibition was part of BIFB15's  Fringe Festival.    

Whilst I was  in Ballarat I took the opportunity to  wander the streets taking  some photos of the architecture 

These snaps were mostly made whilst I was walking around the town looking  at the various exhibitions in the core and fringe programmes.  It was continuing on with what I  had done a couple of years ago when I was there for BIFN 13. 

This is the kind of  picture of silos in a landscape  that I plan to do with respect to that section of the silo project  which is based around the Mallee Highway.  I also referred to the project here. 

This plan is to make the pictures  in black and white  primarily using a Cambo 8x10 monorail. A few will made in colour using the Cambo 5x7 monorail.   The use of colour will be the focus of picturing the silos in the Wimmera. 

I spent a couple of days in Wellington, New Zealand. I hadn't been there since I worked in the CBD as an economist and lived in Hataitai on a ridge above the shoreline of Evans Bay in  the early 1970s.  I was expecting a lot of changes and I was prepared to be  rather disorientated. 

It was a quick photography trip built around renewing my NZ driving licence and I spent the two days that I had available walking around the CBD and  the inner suburbs such as Thorndon; then seeing  photography  exhibitions and checking out the art hubs/centres when the wind turned into a gale and/or it started  raining heavily.   

Wellington is a very walkable city, it is easy to get around, and it offers good photographic opportunities due to  the  CBD being on a narrow coastal plain located between Wellington Harbor and the Wadestown  hill face.   

The art hubs/centre that I came across was the Toi Pōneke Arts Centre that is run by the Wellington City Council. Its gallery featured paintings by Sally Griffin. I wasn't able to see her photographs at the PhotoSpace Gallery  as the exhibition was not hung. I did see a small selection of the 8 x10 black and white Ahu Ahu Ohu  work  of Andrew Ross, a Wellington photographer, made during his  residency at  Tylee Cottage in Whanganui in 2009. 

I also managed to see the Photoforum at 40 exhibition at the City Gallery, which is also run by the Wellington City Council. The Photoforum exhibition traces the development of art photography in New Zealand and  the  growth of photography as an academic subject.  The general acceptance of the practice of serious photography today in New Zealand, are part of PhotoForum's success. Whilst the exhibition  is primarily a visual history of PhotoForum it is also  a chronicle of the development of modernist photography in New Zealand.

I bought the book, PhotoForum at 40: Counterculture, clusters and debate in New Zealand,  which is edited by Nina Seja, and Fiat Lux - 51 photographs by Andrew Ross, which is  based around  his Wellington images that focus on what is disappearing---the  fading past.    

 

This part of Port Elliot is a much desired location. Big expensive architecturally designed housing is being built right on tops of the sandstone cliffs.  The houses have a commanding view of Encounter Bay. That's the way people like it. 

The sea around the rocks  is a  favourite spot for surfers and photographers. 

I'm more interested in the housing meets the coastline theme. I've had several goes at this, none of them satisfactory. It can only be done when the tide is very low. The sand is slowly going from the beach, exposing the rocks. 

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. 

One of the characteristics  of Victor Harbor is the deeply felt concern to protect  its cultural heritage. At its most extreme this takes the form of protecting the old against the new and opposing all development.

On the other hand, there is a lot of gorgeous beach side residential architeture that needs to be protected from being pulled down by developers to build McMansions or a dreary block of units that signify  architecture by numbers.

This is an example of what should be protected. It signifies old, gracious  Victor Habor. The leisurely,  monied world of yesteryear.