I noticed this hanging bark whilst I was walking along Depledge Rd in Waitpinga on an early morning poodlewalk with Kayla. We have a routine  on this walk. We walk  along the road before sunrise,  then we return to the Forester  via  the bushland. We walk through the bushland is slow as I am  taking photos.  

The bark is on the roadside, hanging from a branch.  It is kind of  sculptural; a mobile if you like,  as it gentle  moves when there is an easterly wind blowing. I've  made a video of the movement. 

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Lying beside one of the paths  through  the local Waitpinga bushland  is a pile of bark. It has been there a while. The pink gums (Eucalyptus fasciculosa)  are shredding their  bark and the pile keeps changing due to the  strong coastal winds.    Occasionally, when I am walking  by whilst on a poodlewalk,  I casually toss another piece of bark onto the pile, to see what happens. 

I often photograph the pile when I'm walking past on my way  to  a photo session elsewhere in the bushland. On the occasion of this photo being taken it had been raining  in the early hours of the  morning in early January (6/1/22) and the bark was quite wet. The colours were more intense and saturated than normal.  It was the colour that caught my eye.  

This  picture of roadside vegetation was made in late January whilst I was on an early morning  poodlewalk along Depledge Road in Waitpinga  with Kayla:

I've  started thinking about the possibilities of making a video showing the  early morning light starting to move across the trunk of the  trees whilst  I have been making these kind of photos of roadside vegetation.  Photographing  along Depledge Rd and in the adjacent bushland  has made me very aware that light is constantly moving.     

 In so  thinking  I have assumed  that  video is an extension of still photography. Video represents movement -- eg., light and wind -- that is beyond the capabilities of still photography.  So video is supplementary to  still photography,  rather than being quite different in its approach to the photography that I've been  doing on poodlewalks. 

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This was made in the early morning in the local Waitpinga bushland. Or to be more precise it was 7.15 am on the 29th December 2021. It was one of the last photos I made in 2021. It was one of the few sunny mornings  of this cool and windy summer. 

Afterwards,  Kayla  and I  walked around the bushland for another 30 minutes taking the odd photo.   There was little traffic on Depledge Rd, or even on the central Waitpinga Rd to the beach and surf.  Depledge Rd and the roadside vegetation was dry and dusty -- it hadn't rained for a while. The main sound that morning was the buzzing of the bees.

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From an early morning poodlewalk with Kayla in the  local Waitpinga bushland in November 2021

We only explore  the  bushland in the early morning just after  sunrise,   due to  the prevalence of the eastern brown snakes. Even though it is cool that early in the morning we tread very carefully whilst keeping a sharp lookout. It is the Littoral Zone  for the afternoon poodlewalk with Maleko.  

There is an earlier picture of bark hanging from a branch here   

On some of the recent  early morning poodlewalks with Kayla  I have been wandering in the local bushland in Waitpinga.  I was scouting and scoping for some possibilities for a  large format photo session. I am looking for something simple and basic that can  done in the early morning  during the summer months. Early in this context means no later than half an hour after sunrise.  

This is one possibility that I came across:

 However, I'm not sure that I could find this particular trunk and branch again. I will need to spend time looking for it and if I find it, then laying a trail to guide me back to it.

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I took  a break from sitting in front of the  computer working on The Bowden Archives and Industrial Modernity book by wandering around the local bushland on a poodlewalk with Kayla. Sitting in front of the computer was getting to me. 

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 From a early morning  poodlewalk in local bushland in Waitpinga with Kayla during the middle of winter 2021.  

It has been 3-4months  since I've walked through the local bushland. I went back yesterday morning to avoid the gale force  south westerly winds. I noticed that the native orchids   were in flower.  During this time I have been reading Photography and Place:  Australian landscape Photography 1970 untill now , which is a pdf of an exhibition curated by Judy Annear, Art Gallery NSW in 2011. 

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Kayla and I made a  brief return the local  patch of bush in Waitpinga last week.   We had not walked around  there since late spring. We had stayed away  over the summer months because of the brown snakes. In early autumn I  decided that it would be safe early in the morning around sunrise as the early morning temperatures was cool.  

So Kayla and I had a  quick poodlewalk one morning when it wasn't heavily overcast to check things out. It is quite dark in this patch of bush early in the morning,  and the heavily overcast skies make it difficult to  take photos handheld. It was safe. We haven't been back since because of the heavy cloud cover in the morning. 

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I have just come across  this current  exhibition of trees at the Monash University Museum of Art entitled Tree Story. I do not know much about the exhibition, or the narrative that is implied in the word 'story'.  The information on the MUMA website is very minimal. It says that the  exhibition's:

"creative practices "create a ‘forest’ of ideas relating to critical environmental and sustainability issues. At its foundation—or roots—are Indigenous ways of knowing and a recognition of trees as our ancestors and family...Tree Story takes inspiration from the underground networks, information sharing and mutual support understood to exist within tree communities, and poses the question: what can we learn from trees and the importance of Country?" 

There are no links to the Tree Story podcast, or to The Tree School publication on the website.  So we don't  have  access to the fleshing  out of the above ideas by the curators. This minimal online approach to an exhibition is standard art gallery practice .The art galleries  continue to assume that exhibitions are about people  physically visiting the gallery, even after a year of living with  the Covid-19 pandemic and its restrictions on people movement. 

Does the  use of 'school' suggest that trees  have the capacity to learn?  Or does tree school  refer to  a place where people can gather for communal learning and the production of knowledge grounded in lived experience and connection to communities? I have no idea. 

From a recent poodlewalk in January 2021:

 It is roadside vegetation along Baum Rd in Waitpinga.  Sadly this vegetation is not regenerating,  and the strip of roadside vegetation along this  road is gradually lessening as the plants and trees slowly  continue to die. This is common in this part of the southern Fleurieu Peninsula. There is no caring for this roadside vegetation.