Throughout the winter of 2023 I would often spend an hour or so wandering  through  the local Waitpinga bushland with Kayla on an early morning   poodlewalk.  I'd be walking in the bushland  just after sunrise,  and whilst walking  I started  a bark series with  the Leica M4-P. It would be one camera, one lens, one film and it would centre on the ontology of the object in the present moment.  The bark is so mundane, that if we encounter it in everyday life, we would barely register it.

There are some earlier photos  that preceded  this series as a conscious walking art  project,  and they can be interpreted as  pointing to what was to become. These early  photos  can be viewed   here and here  and here. Oh, and here.   They emerged from drifting --from becoming lost in the bushland, being  responsive to chance and to circumstance, and privileging  the reactivity of the walk itself.

It is a low key walking art series,  which  explores  the ephemera of the mundane  bark  peeling off the trunks and branches of the pink gums; or the piles of bark lying  on the ground. The transience of the  bark,   its decay and disintegration (ie., perishability) is one of the more recognisable aspects of  the  flux,  or  the constant change in  the  bushland apart from the occasional fallen tree. It was slow walking whilst keeping an eye out for foxes, kangaroos, and rabbits so I could prevent Kayla from chasing them.

The series as a walking art project is premised on a meditative walking and seeing (of being in the ephemeral present) and  on the photography  being simple.   It  is underpinned by Japanese aesthetics,  with its minimalist approach and  complex and sophisticated categories with multiple interpretations (eg., wabi-wabi).  It  is  a modest,  walking art project that is contrary, or offside to,  the currently fashionable photographic approach to make  hero mages that celebrates the photographer's vision.  

The background to the photos in 2023 is that they were all hand held and were usually  made in the  shade before the sunlight entered the bushland.  This  meant that  I  was working at the limits of the 35mm colour negative film and the  lens --- ie., with a shallow depth of field. The second photo in the walking art bark series is here whilst the first in the  series is here.   

When I'd finished  a  roll of 36 it would go  into the fridge and I'd forget about it along with pieces of bark that  I'd photographed. So I had no idea what was on the roll of film after a couple of weeks.   I  worked slowly as a lot of the peeling bark was not suitable to be photographed; or it didn't fit into the overall poetic ethos that shaped how I used the  rangefinder.    

2022 ended with Kayla dying from cancer and the Leica camera and 50mm lens  being badly damaged from  salt water.   No photos in the series were made during 2023,   as  the rangefinder  was being repaired by Leica in Wetzlar Germany and I was saving  the money  to buy    a second hand  Summicron 50mm  lens to replace the damaged one that Leica could not repair.  The 5 rolls of film from 2022  were processed without mishap by the lab in 2024;   I  picked up working on the series in February 2024;  I'm  walking with Maya, a 13 month old standard poodle, in the bushland in the  early morning.  

Update

Though Posthaven's simple blog format is very useful for working things out, it does not  have the facility for constructing  a  gallery or a portfolio.  So the group of  bark photos in  the  ongoing series can be viewed online  on the poodlewalks website.   This is  a work in progress  and the photos will be added to over time.  At this stage it is unclear how this ongoing series will be presented publicly -- ie., remain as an online gallery/portfolio  shown in an exhibition,  or presented as a photobook.