Browsing Tag

studio

black + white, Encounter Studio, large format, people

Encounter Studio

November 9, 2022

We have a small space downstairs that’s a storeroom, even though I had thought that I could set it up as a studio space. In this space sits a Cambo studio stand, a 8×10 Sinar P monorail and two background poles that I’d purchased in the 1980s, a fridge for film and dog food, two filing cabinets and a camera trunk for a large format camera. But the photography has not happened, and the studio space has become a storeroom by default. Every time I go into the storeroom I become depressed looking at all that camera gear just sitting there waiting to be used. I keep asking myself: how can I use this setup.

The photography has not happened for several reasons. The studio space only has a small side window and so the exposures are more than 1-2 minutes during the summer months when the afternoon light comes into the room. It is is filtered through the bushes in the garden outside the window and when it is cloudy the exposures are around 4 minutes. During winter the studio is quite dark, and though I did consider some studio lights, I didn’t really want to go down that pathway, or spend money on that kind of equipment. Secondly, though I considered doing still life photography, and experimented a bit, I wasn’t all that interested in that photographic genre. So nothing happened.

Suzanne, Encounter Studio

Then I came across the above archival portrait of Suzanne that had been made in the large downstairs room with its big window just after we had moved from Adelaide to Encounter Bay on the Fleurieu Peninsula. I started thinking: well, why not portraits? Why not use the potential studio space to photograph our friends? I then remembered that I had initially rejected the studio portrait option as I’d thought that the 2 minute plus minimum exposures would be too long for people to pose.

Then I realised that long exposures incorporate time and the inevitable bodily movement of the sitter during that exposure is a representation of time. The tracing of movement through an extended exposure time is quite distinct from that produced by a series of instantaneous photographs. So why not turn what I’d initially thought to be as a negative into a positive?

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archives, Encounter Studio, studio

Studio

July 28, 2020

The new and the old. Looking forward and looking back. Struggling with the new and nostalgic about the old.

These are limbo moments during the living with Covid-19. There is a now a ring of steel around Melbourne. What initially appeared to be a temporary time of a suspension of everyday life is now becoming a new normal. With the virus calling the shots, anxiety rises as the veneer of control to contain the spread of Covid-19 vanishes, whilst fear emerges about the capacity to deal with the subsequent economic fallout. The scars, we realize are going to last a generation.

How do we live well with a pandemic, the massive global disruption and closed state borders? The structural inequalities mean that some people clearly won’t be able to live well during the forthcoming era of transformation. What happens then? Will there be a shift to sustainability?

Rolleiflex 6006, 2010
orange rose, Encounter Studio

The new is the newsletter, the online gallery, the first exhibition and the forthcoming corner store.This is how I have initially kept myself busy during the Covid-19 lockdown. The next exhibition is on walking/photography and it is a part of the 2020 SALA Festival in South Australia. The third exhibition is entitled Abstraction: Different Interpretations. This new is my initial response to self-isolation, living with the pandemic, and adjusting to the new normal of increasing untraced community transmission of Covid-19. It probably only a matter of time before it enters South Australia, despite its closed borders.

The old is the studio. Returning to what was. Looking inwards to the archive. Is this the start of a process of reflection and self-awareness as part of the process of gaining a different perspective on everyday life when the ground under our feet is shifting?

pincushion flower, Leucosperum

The picture above of the Leucosperum pincushion flower from our garden at Victor Harbor is from the archives. It was made with a Rolleiflex 6006 with close up lenses in the studio space at our home in Encounter Bay. The downstairs space had good natural light. Unfortunately, that space is no longer available for studio photography, and the studio equipment has been moved into a storeroom off the garage.

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black + white, coastal, Encounter Studio, studio

studio

December 30, 2017

Although I have a rudimentary studio set up at Encounter Studio (with  a 8×10 Sinar P,  a  table and window light)   most of the still life images that I do of the subject matter around the coastal neighbourhood at Victor Harbor are in open air settings. The method of working is simple. The locations and subject matter are selected whilst I am on the morning or evening poodle walks,  I take  some scoping photos with the digital camera (an old  Sony NEX-7)  and,  if they work,  I come back and reshoot them with a film camera.

This kind of  studio work is a break from my  topographic  approach to photography that I do for the Mallee Routes project.    This is  an early example, probably one of the first  images made in an open air,  coastal studio:

bottle + shells, Petrel Cove

The bottle  had been washed on  Dep’s Beach, which is west of Petrel Cove,  and I carried it back to Petrel Cove on the return leg of the poodlewalk. I  set it up amongst some rocks, and made some digital pictures.   I then hid the bottle  amongst some rocks so that people wouldn’t find it and the  high tide wouldn’t carry it back to sea.

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