s2z Photography Blog

Wordless Wednesday [Ten Years Ago Today Edition]

North Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. 2020-07-05 13:30:42

Melbourne is undergoing several major infrastructure projects right now. The West Gate Tunnel, The Metro Tunnel, and the Melbourne Airport Rail Link to name just three. All of them impact on the roads and environment I use and photograph regularly. This crossing on Dynon road has been added for cyclists to use to cross the road. The bike path and associated underground tunnel has been closed while construction work is underway.

I spent a pleasant Sunday afternoon walking from Arden street to Dynon road and back following Moonee Ponds Creek. I shot about 1 and a half rolls of 120 film and about 50 or so digital pictures. The light was very good as it often is this time of year. The light was the main impetus for me going out to begin with. Having driven past a few times I had noticed some changes. In particular the 2 new bridges built for pedestrians and cyclists. I wanted to capture the state of things as they are. They will I’m sure revert to some form of their original state once the projects are completed.

Wordless Wednesday #20200701

Homage to Henry Fox-Talbot

Footscray Competition Outtake

I am considering entering the annual Picturing Footscray competition this year. This is an outtake. I’m still consider the brief which is, “to capture the essence of this great location during this tumultuous time, with the added challenge of respecting physical distancing and self-isolation requirements. ”

Wormholes!

Here’s one I disappeared down

Meanwhile on Flickr

A sign of the times?

Olympus are selling their camera business

TBT [2019-06-13]

3 empty shuttle bus seats LAX — Three empty shuttle bus seats on the way LAX, our second day of travel home to Melbourne in 2019

Throwback Thursday, this time 12 months ago we were returning from a trip to NYC, via Los Angeles. At this point we had been in transit for 24 hours.

We had already lost a day by being forced to stay overnight in Los Angeles. A delayed flight was blamed.

Surprisingly we weren’t able to choose our seats at the ticket counter. Yet the aircraft had a large number of empty seats when we finally boarded.

At least we got two aisle seats which makes getting up and down on long haul flights a tad more comfortable. By the time we hit the tarmac in Melbourne we had been in transit for 3 days!

Slow burning projects

Vacant Land awaits redevelopment in Sunshine — Vacant Land Sunshine pending possible redevelopment, 2020-05-30 15:57:48

In the middle of 2017, possibly after discussions with Gary Sauer-Thompson, I decided to deliberately photograph Sunshine. With an emphasis on the rapid change that is occurring. This has turned into slow burning project. Its final conclusion and outcome is uncertain.

I have lived in this suburb since the early 2000s. Digital photography at the time was still in its infancy 20 megapixel sensor DSLRs were still prohibitively expensive. I was predominately using film. My first digital camera was a Kodak DC 260. A capable camera by the standards of the time. Disks and storage in the early 2000s were also prohibitively expensive making archiving difficult. This was the era where the floppy disk at 1.5 mb was the standard. Still with that first camera I managed over 12000 pictures in its 4 year life. Many of these pictures were of anything and everything that caught my eye. I was at this stage a relative newcomer to Sunshine, so there was lots to explore and look at. Living near a major infrastructure site helped too. We have a grain silo on one edge of the park at the end of our street. We have both a busy Metro train service and a 3 regional rail services using the station near us. The land in and around these kind of service spaces have always fascinated me. Even before moving to Sunshine I would trek out to the Western suburbs of Melbourne looking for unique sites of neglected post industrial glory.

This project, currently housed on tumblr ticks away quietly now. There are some major infrastructure projects underway, with a major residential hotel planned nearby as well. So change is constant. I have discovered a new commemorative plaque nearby too. I think I need to capture all these as well now. They are useful for their textual information alone. I am building a page dedicated to the history of Sunshine on my static website too.