The macro photo below was made on a recent, early morning poodlewalk with Kayla along Depledge Road in Waitpinga on the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia. It was sometime during the 2020 Xmas/New Year period.
I have generally been walking along the back country road in the morning or afternoon to avoid the strong, gusty coastal winds; or for some shade from the late afternoon summer sun. The rhizomes photography has been rather limited this summer.
This branch of a pink gum ( Eucalyptus fasciculosa) is in the local bushland in Waitpinga adjacent to Depledge Rd on the southern Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia.
The picture was made in the early morning in mid-Spring (ie., October) about 15 minutes after sunrise. I often walk down Depledge Rd on a poodlewalk to avoid the strong, south-westerly winds off the southern ocean. The bush on the west side of the road provides us with protection from the wind.
It has been a cold, wet, windy, spring so far. We have had so much rain along the southern coast fo the Fleurieu Peninsula. However, there were a few days of fine weather between the days of steady rain in early October, and so we were able to wander around the local bushland in Waitpinga.
This picture was made in the early morning inbetween the rains sweeping across the coast:
It is a grounded branch of a pink gum in local bushland in Waitpinga. The tree is growing along the ground.
This picture of roadside vegetation was made on a recent early morning poodlewalk with Kayla along Depledge Rd in Waitpinga during the recent stormy conditions. Recent as in late September.
We chose to walk along this road as the adjacent bushland provided us with some shelter from the strong, gale force south westerly winds battering the coast. There was no traffic along the road, and so we had it to ourselves; apart from the usual rabbits, kangaroos and foxes criss crossing Depledge road.
The morning of 2nd August was foggy and, after the poodlewalk along Depledge Road in Waitpinga with Kayla we ended up slowly walking around the local bushland :
Foggy mornings like this are rare in the southern Fleurieu Peninsula. We have only had two such mornings this winter.
In the last week or so I have been spending the early morning poodlewalks with Kayla exploring a small patch of bushland as a contrast to the coastal rocks. The bush runs alongside Depledge Rd in Waitpinga, and I am assuming this patch has been put aside as a result of the Landcare moment in the late 20th century.
On these bush walks I am using a handheld digital camera to build up some supplementary material for the forthcoming online walking /photography exhibition at Encounters Gallery. This will open in August as a part of the SALA Festival. I am also using these walks to find some suitable subject matter for a 5x4 photo session. This is one session that has been done. In the first instance the 5x4 photos are for an upcoming online exhibition for the Friends of Photography Group in August.
When walking in the bush reserve I follow the trails that have laid down by the kangaroos who crewe regular visitors to the bushland. If I didn't walk their trails iIwould be walking around in circles with no sense of where I was.
I made the photo below in the late afternoon of June 20--winter solstice--when I was on a poodlewalk with Maleko. As we were wandering back to the car through the bushland reserve in Waitpinga after a photo session with a medium format film camera I made the photo in passing just before dusk.
I didn't think much of it at the time, and I forgot all about it--until I uploaded the photos to check what the possibilities there were for from my recent scoping for another film-based photoshoot. This looked to be a good possibility--one worth checking out more consciously.
Even though it had been rain all day I decided to go looking for the 2 trees this afternoon. It took me 2 hours of wandering around amongst the passing showers before I finally found these 2 trees. I judged that the subject matter was an afternoon photo session rather than a morning one and that it needed soft afternoon light and a blueish sky, rather than dull light and overcast skies.
Whilst on the early morning poodlewalks with Kayla I have started to explore a small bush "reserve" running alongside agricultural land and Depledge Rd in Waitpinga. I presume that this small block of native bushland has been put aside from the old Waitpinga landcare programme.
Kayla and I usually walk along the adjacent Depledge Rd from 6.30 to 7.15 am, then around sunrise we enter the bush "reserve" and wander within it for around 45 minutes. I am looking for possible photographic subjects and occasionally I do come across one --such as the one above.
I mentioned in an earlier post that I had made a photographic study of these two trees at the beginning of Halls Creek Rd in Waitpinga with my medium format film camera (a Rolleiflex SL66). The study is below, and the picture was made early in the morning during the winter of 2019.
It was just after the early morning sun came above the hill and early morning light lit up the roadside corner.
I had forgotten all about this study until I returned to this Tugwell/Halls Creek Rd location early one morning during the Covid-19 lockdown to photograph this scene for the online Covid-19 exhibition at Encounters Gallery.
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.