This picture was made on  a recent  early morning autumn poodlewalk with Kayla along  the Heysen Trail in Waitpinga. The location  is just around the corner from where we live in Encounter Bay--just a few minutes drive in the Forester,   then a short  walk. The location  is ideally situated  for the light just after sunrise.  

The subject matter and location  are  quite different to  the recent  trend of porch portraits in local suburbs, which has been one key response to the Covid-19 pandemic crisis.  Some hold that "porch portraits"   are rather risky, given the confinement and special distancing requirements.  

This digital picture  was scoping  for a  future film session during stage 3 "lockdown"  of the Covid-19 virus.  I started this a few days latter with the Rolleiflex SL66 medium format camera, followed by  some   large format photography with a Linhof 5x4 Technika IV. I wanted to  keep this slow photography ticking  over within  the limitations of the stay-at-home lockdown.     

It  does look as if the lockdown will continue for another month, then it will be slowly  eased step by step.   At the moment we  cannot undertake non-essential travel around the state during the stay-at-home lockdown--so there is no work on the  Mallee Routes project.    Maybe this particular travel  rule  will be  eased within the month,  whilst the South Australian border continues to remain closed.

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This bark study was made in February 2019 whilst I was on a poodlewalk with Kayla  along the Heysen Trail in Waitpinga: 

I went back a couple of days latter  with a  film camera and tripod to re-photograph the bark.    Sadly,  a couple of days of  strong  south westerly winds had torn the bark off from the trunk of the pink gum (Eucalyptus fasciculosa). 

This picture of the trunk of a pink gum (Eucalyptus fasciculosa) was made whilst I was on an early morning poodlewalk with Kayla in early October this year. The picture was made  prior to the sun breaking through the cloud cover: 

The pink gums are situated at the low point of Halls Creek Rd. This  creek only runs when there has been  a very wet winter. This did not happen in 2019. 

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This picture was made in the early autumn along the Heysen Trail  in Waitpinga whilst I was on a poodlewalk. 

It was made just after  I'd finished  this photo session and we were returning to the Forester. 

I made this photograph on the fly whilst I was scoping  for another picture to re-photograph.    I was  on an early morning poodlewalk with Kayla  on the Heysen Trail in Waitpinga  at the time. 

 It is digital black and white. The soft light in the clearing caught my eye. 

This scene is on  a part of the Heysen Trail in Waitpinga. I often walk along this section on a poodlewalk  as it is a strip of bush between farmland. 

I thought that working on this tree project that was working towards a photobook  was a waste of time. Then I came across the Melbourne Photobook collective  and William Stewart's On the Making of Trees-- which is an article about the process of making a photobook based on him  photographing trees over a number of  years.  

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