This black and white version of an abstract rock formation near Petrel Cove is from the archives in 2019.
A colour version, which was posted in 2019, is here.
I have been starting to research and write about photographic abstraction that moves beyond the modernist idea of abstraction as non-figuration of the mid-twentieth century. Whilst doing so I have been working my way through the archives.
I recently needed to fill in 3 or 4 more hours walking with the standard poodles around the Adelaide parklands. This was in mid-January 2022.
It was a warm day and we walked amongst the trees in and around Veale Gardens. We moved slowly through the shady areas beneath the trees to fill in the time. As we did so I made a series of photos of the trunks of the trees.
It was a return to what I used to do when I lived in the CBD prior to 2015 -- walking the poodles in the parklands and making photos. Only this time I wore a mask and kept my distance from everyone because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic is a game changer.
From a recent poodlewalk in the Adelaide parklands:
We had several hours to fill in between commitments so we used the time to slowly walk around the parklands behind Veal Gardens. I spend most of the time photographing the trunks of the various trees. It was hot that Sunday, so we took time out to sit in the shade and watch the world go by.
I have been calling many of the rock abstracts that I have made whilst walking along the coast between Petrel Cove and Kings Head granite, when they should be termed Kanmantoo. These Kanmantoo group rocks are typically derived from the Cambrian Period sedimentation in shallow ocean.
According to the Coastal Landscape of South Australian text these Cambrian metasedimentary rocks are aligned with the Encounter Fault, occur northeast of Newland Head, diminishing in height towards King's Head and the Bluff (Rosetta Head). The small pocket beaches, largely derived from erosion of Permian glacial deposits, occupy bays eroded into less resistant Cambrian rocks.
I have started reading Patrick McCaughey's 1969 book Australian Abstract Art. He says that there is no absolute distinction between abstract and representational art, that much Australian abstraction keeps in close contact with the physical world, and its aim is not to give an illusion of the physical world but to provide us with an experience of it (p.3).
McCaughey argued that the Sydney modernists (eg., Ralph Batson, Grace Cowley) in the 1950s embraced a constructivist interpretation of abstraction as a new order different from the natural order: ie., a new vision appropriate to the 20th century. This is linked by McCaughey to Moholy-Nagy's book The New Vision. The new vision was rooted in the technological culture of the twentieth century.
On the way back from walking for 6 days in the Vulkathunha-Gammon Ranges National Park we spend some time exploring Brachina Gorge in the Ikara-Flinders Ranges National Park.
This is an abstraction of the trunk of a eucalyptus in the Adelaide Parklands:
It was made whilst on a recent poodlewalk . It was raining at the time we were walking.
This was made on a recent poodlewalk in the Adelaide parklands:
The area was the southern part of Victoria part though which South Park Lands creek runs through The southern part, where we walked, w has been revegetated with open woodland. It's a good space for a quick poodlewalk.
This abstraction of salt + coastal granite rocks was made whilst I was on an afternoon poodlewalk with Maleko amongst some coastal rocks west of Petrel Cove on the southern Fleurieu Peninsula of South Australia.
It had been a hot summers day and the small pools of water that usually lie amongst the granite rocks from the high tide in the morning had evaporated. I made a number of studies of these salt abstractions that afternoon.
This picture is part of an ongoing series that depends on certain weather conditions along the littoral zone.
It was made on a poodlewalk during a a wild storm event. The tide was high, the wind was gusty and strong, and the waves were very high. It was quite dangerous making my way around the rocks west of Petrel Cove. We--Maleko and myself--- had to proceed with great caution.
I made a video of the surging waves using my iPhone 6 whilst on this afternoon walk. The waves swirled around my feet as I sat on a rock making the video.