I have combined two minor projects here. Nostalgic pleasures which involves using expired film -- Fujifilm Superia 200 ASA --- and a 1960's Zeiss-Ikon Contaflex S (SLR) with the Roadside one that involves exploring the various roadsides that I walk along in the morning and afternoon.
It's a celebration of the survival of the vegetation on the roadside, old film and cameras.
A sub-theme of heat has emerged in the ongoing, low key Roadside project.
According to the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) 2024 was Adelaide’s driest year since 2006, with the city receiving nearly 200 millimetres below the average rainfall. Heat refers to the extreme dryness of the landscape in southern South Australia, during the heatwave of the late summer/early autumn. This dryness can be seen in the dusty paddocks and the dead grass along the side of the road. It is the dead grass that I've been noticing during my afternoon poodlewalks with Maya on Waitpinga's backcountry roads in the southern Fleurieu Peninsula.
There has been no rain for months and none is forecast by BOM for some time. Only more extreme temperatures with the increased risk for bushfires. People on water tanks in the Adelaide Hills and Yankalilla have run out of water and they are now relying on water cartage. This is such a contrast to the sub-tropical cyclones (eg., Cyclone Alfred) and the floods in north-eastern NSW and south-eastern Queensland, due to the ocean and atmosphere being demonstrably warmer than even just a few years ago. The climate is changing because it is warming.
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.
Yet another picture from Halls Creek Rd, Waitinga, which is located in the southern Fleurieu Peninsula, South Australia:
This one was even more planned than the other pictures that I made on Halls Creek Rd:---the time was down to the minute in order to ensure that the early late autumn morning light fell across the twin trunks of the eucalypt. Without that early morning light the picture would have been dull and flat. I would have walked past the scene.
Halls Creek Rd is a part of the Heysen Trail. It runs not south and and it is where I often walk in the evening with the standard poodles. It offers protection from the strong, southern coastal winds and it has lovely afternoon light.
This picture was made in the late winter. There are fields where sheep and cattle graze on the western and eastern sides of the road. This, in effect, is a strip of roadside vegetation between farmland. A lot of the spaces on the Fleurieu Peninsula are like this. Most of the land has acquired capital value and has become a commodity. There is no Arcadian natural simplicity that stands in opposition to, and a compensation for, urban life in the postmodern city here. It is the landscape of white settlement.
It all looks quite different in late spring as the green grass has dried and it has become a golden brown. It would be a different photo in summer. Late spring, however, is not a good time to walk along back country roads, such as this one with the standard poodles. The dried grass seeds along the side of the road become caught up in the poodle's woolly coats and they are very difficult to get out. Miss one and they spiral their way into the body within 24 hours.
This picture was made one afternoon along Halls Creek Rd in Waitpinga on the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia. Halls Creek Rd is part of the Heysen Trail, and I often walk along there on a late afternoon poodlewalk in the winter time. It's fenced on both sides of the road, it is protected from the southwesterly winds , and the western sunshine gently lights up the vegetation.
It's a pleasant walk in the late afternoon and I've made a number of photos/studies of the roadside vegetation along this section of the Heysen Trail. This was one of the first:
On this occasion I exposed some old Portra NC 160 ASA film that had been sitting in the 6x7 film back of the Linhof Tehnika 70 for 5 years or more. I thought that I'd better finish the roll of film and have it developed as I had nothing to lose. Though the negatives were a bit flat and the colours were washed out the digital files were okay when I scanned the film. Some of the pictures looked a bit odd, but I didn't mind.
I have decided to shoot some 8x10 colour film that I bought from B+H about nine months ago. It has been sitting in the fridge at Encounter Studio until I acquired a couple of new Toyo double darkslides . They arrived last week.
I used a poodlewalk yesterday to go scouting for likely locations for large format photography. Here is one possibility:
The location has to be roadside or pretty close to it, as the Cambo SC monorail and the Linhof tripod are too heavy to carry very far from the car. This location looks to be a goer--it needs good cloud formation through.
When I was down at Victor Harbor on the weekend with Suzanne and Barbara Heath I drove around some of the back roads looking for material for my conceptual photography book. I spent several hours in the car driving on dusty roads and, to my dismay, there was little roadside vegetation that was suitable.
The main problem I encounted was that most of the roadside vegetation has been so cleared by the dairy farmers, that there is so little in the way of pink gums and Xanthorrhoea on the raodside for me to work with.
I'm begining to think that there may not be enough material for me to be able finish the Blurb book.
I had an early morning photographic session this morning with the 8x10 Cambo along the back country roads just west of the city of Victor Harbor. I was able to incorporate this shoot into a session for the conceptual photography project on the pink gum and Xanthorrhoea combination.
The conditions were ideal--the wind had dropped, there was early morning cloud cover and sunshine. I had been been trying to photograph this scene for ages but the conditions had been against me. I had imagined it with flat light but I decided to go with the early morning sun.
I've been laid low with a torn ligament in my lower back and that ends the planned 8x10 photography for this weekend. So I've been going through some of the roadside pictures on the computer that I took last year during the summer.
One area that I started in the roadside series was the summer grasses:
I had a quick look at my summer grasses photography before, just after I'd scanned them, but I didn't like the series at all. I thought the idea was misguided. So I forgot about them.
It's winter now and everything looks different. So I can see the pictures I took then at more of a distance.