I've  realised that I have been making roadside pictures without being consciously aware of my doing so.  My  concentration was  on the pieces of bark themselves, not their location.  This is a good example.   This  is another one in  black and white.  Then I realised that the location was often the roadside. 

The roadside pictures usually happen whilst  I'm  walking down back country soars (eg., Depledge Rd)  in Waitpinga on the  early morning poodlewalks with Maya.  A case in point -- in  the late summer of  2024 

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The local bushland is becoming off limits in the afternoon due to the snakes coming out of their winter hibernation with  the warm spring weather. It is still okay to walk in the bushland  in the early morning before sunrise when it  is cold or wet from the heavy dew.  

I notice that this  Rhizomes blog was neglected during the autumn/winter period this year -- there is a gap between March and August. There is even greater neglect  with The Littoral Zone blog. I'm  sure this neglect  was the result of me struggling to put  the walking and the photography together as a process-based  photographic project. 

The photo below was made in early September 2023 whilst I was on a poodlewalk  in the late afternoon with Maleko:

Going back through the archives Rhizomes  and seeing what  I had photographed in the local bush during that March-August period I can see that an immersive style of walking was emerging: one that was reactive to what was occurring around me, rather than going into the bushland to photograph a  particular object in certain lighting conditions that had been pre-visualised.

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This macro photo was made whilst I was on a hobbled walk in the local bushland. 

It was late in the afternoon. I have looked for this bark since, but I have never been able to find it. The winter winds would have prised it loose from the branch of the pink gum.  

This is what happens to old piles of bark in the bushland that have been lying on the ground for a year of more: 

The colours  fade, the bark slowly breaks up, then it starts to crumble.  

I came across the above  pile when I returned to walking in the bushland with Maya  after a long break over the summer.  I was  introducing Maya to the bushland. I recognised the pile  from a year ago. 

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This is another interpretation of  the hanging bark  along Depledge Rd in Waitpinga. 

 In contrast  to the early morning version that was uploaded  in this earlier post the above  version was made in the late afternoon. 

This picture is a  follow up  to this post on walking along Depledge Rd in Waitpinga in May 2022. 

The above  picture was made on an early morning walk in late May 2022.  It is a close-up  interpretation  of this picture,  and it  was made with a 10 year old  digital camera. There  is a  b+w  interpretation made with a 60 year old film camera. 

The hanging bark along Depledge Rd no longer exists. The gale force winter winds tore it to shreds.  

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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.  

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   

 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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