From the  film archives.  

This  is another  image that I came across when I was going through my film archives. A public sculpture at Andamooka in South Australia. The picture was  made with a Leica M4-P,  a 50mm  f.2 Summicron lens and Kodak 400ASA film:

 As I mentioned in an earlier post I  discovered a roll of film I'd exposed whilst I was  visiting  Andamooka circa 2004-5   My film work at the time--35mm and medium format--- was usually developed and scanned by a pro-lab, but for some reason this roll hadn't been scanned.  This was  several years prior to  buying my first  digital camera.

This picture of roadside vegetation  was made whilst  I was walking along  a back country road in Waitpinga, on the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia. It was in the late  summer in 2016 and  I was on an early morning   poodlewalk  with the standard poodles. 

I was forcing myself to take photos of trees and the agricultural landscape around me so as  to keep my  photographic eye hand in. This was the area/locality  in which I now live,  so how can I photograph it? I recall that I didn't have the confidence to  set things up to  do tripod based photography. 

Though film has quickly gone  poof (poor Kodak) as the medium of choice   for photographers,  I am part of that 'bridge generation' between film and digital. Digital, including rangefinder digital,   is simply easier, faster and immediate since the camera  is really a portable computer (with a sets of options,) and a sensor and  lens.   My technique is far slower and more measured with film.  

My doubts  about 35mm film photography are beginning to ease.  I can see that there is still some life in 35mm film photography,  in that  it has a different quality to the digital version.  But it is only for some subject matter, as I'm beginning to discover.  Unfortunately, I cannot predict which one.  

That  filmic quality is hard to pinpoint,  but it  has something along the lines of  providing a more emotional response to what is photographed, as distinct from a technically perfect image that can be quite bland.   Digital images are  unfilm like and so perfect that camera software manufacturers are now adding  adding "grain" enhancement plugins. 

A rarely experienced moment during the summer months on the southern coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula near Waitpinga- dense sea fog:

It  happened  for a couple of days. It would roll in across the landscape  in  the late afternoon.  Then it disappeared. 

An abstract image from when Suzanne and myself  were  in Wellington in 2015 before we   walked the Tongariro Alpine Crossing:

It is from the wharf precinct  in Wellington.  Suzanne and I spent a lovely Friday evening on the wharf. It was a warm,  balmy evening and everyone was out and about enjoying themselves.   Such evenings are few and far between in Wellington. 

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This is one of the pictures I made of the Clifton Car Park when I was in  Wellington, New Zealand  late last year after Suzanne and I had  walked the Tongariro Alpine Crossing.  We  spend the day after we returned to Wellington, and before we flew back to Adelaide,  checking out  some of my old haunts (Island Bay) when I  had lived (Evans Bay)  and worked in the city as an economist.   

I  enjoy walking Wellington. On this occasion I was walking in the  early in the morning before breakfast.  I'd seen the Clifton Car Park late the previous  afternoon and  I'd walked around it. I found it  a fascinating place to explore with a camera.

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This scene is near Kingscote on Kangaroo Island in South Australia. I was on a poodlewalk on a roadway that ran along the edge of the coast.  This part  of the coast was basically a rubbish dump. 

We were staying  at American River  on Kangaroo Island on a holiday. 

I was on my way to Canberra. It was early in the morning and I was  driving through the Murraylands  heading towards  Wellington  to catch the ferry  across the River Murray. The days journey was  to go to Talem Bend, travel  the Mallee Highway, and have an overnight stop at Hay in NSW. I was  hoping to take some photos of the exposed roots of the redgums along the Murrumbidgee for the Edgelands project. 

I was travelling alongside  Lake Alexandrina and it was the light and the colours that caught my eye.  So I  made a cliched 'on the road' photo with my decades old one lens/one camera. It is photography with a rangefinder camera. A spontaneous snapshot with its  trace of the real.  

Whilst making the photo I realised that the Leica rangefinder film camera is basically a relic  in a world of automation and algorithms; in a world where photography is now produced through a mathematical set of rules that work autonomously, without human interference and which are self-correcting. You press the button and the program takes over to produce a data set cheaply and easily.  Perfection.

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This image was made whilst I was on a photoshoot early one Sunday morning in 2015. I was still living in Sturt St in the city then, so I could easily walk to and around the CBD.  

 My urban photography----here, here and here--- has come to a standstill now that I am living on the southern coast in the Fleurieu Peninsula.  

The Hay Plain in NSW is a space that people drive through on their way from Adelaide to Canberra or Sydney. It is treeless with scrubby saltbush, and it is commonly seen by those viewing it through their car windows  as a  flat,  barren, featureless  and bleak space--especially during the day in mid-summer.   I find this space fascinating as it is very atmospheric with the  changing light, clouds and rain.

 Hay is an overnight stop for me on the Adelaide and Canberra trip and I usually stop and take photos. This picture was made on a 2015 trip  to Canberra as I was driving into Hay on the Sturt Highway:   

The light was starting to fade and I only had the time to  quickly make  a couple  of photographs.  I stopped the car and wandered around whilst  the road trains roared past.  I noticed the bits of cotton moving over the  road and along the ground from the  wind and the road trains. I laid down on my stomach on the side of the road and made some snaps before the light went.  

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I'd flown into Adelaide from spending several days in Wellington,  New Zealand,  on a photo trip and I was waiting  for Suzanne to pick me  up. She had driven up from Victor Harbor to pick me up, but was running late as she  was battling the afternoon commuter traffic that was going to the southern parts of  the city and beyond to the coast.  

So I filled in the time by making some photos around the  airport.  The light was good. 

I was carrying  several different cameras with me from the trip, so I quickly played around with each of them as the  late autumn light was fading.  This is the Leica version.