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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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. 

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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. 

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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.  

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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. 

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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.  

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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.  

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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.

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