ChrisR
I'm a well known grump...
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In 1971 I was lucky enough to get a 2-year contract to work in Adelaide, South Australia for my employer, ICL. I went out in August and stopped for 3 days in Singapore on the way, where I bought a black Pentax Spotmatic II. For the past 15 years or so I've been assuming that the SLR I currently have was the one I bought then, but my current one is a silver Pentax ME, so clearly I've been senile for a LONG time! The evidence is a terrible self-portrait shot taken in Singapore that I'm not going to show you, but definitely identifies a black Spotmatic II, self-timer and all (the latter is significant later!).
This shot was taken with my new camera on Kodacolor-X in Singapore, of sampans in the Singapore river. I didn't like Singapore then, but I did like this bit; a real sense of the original life of the natives...
CN71Dferr07_Adj by Chris R, on Flickr
I didn't expect that the sampans would all be gone by the next time I visited some 20 years later. Now it's all cleaned up and the heart of the nice antiseptic tourist district, but what drew me has long vanished.
I've got a nice nostalgia shot of dawn breaking over the Australian Northern Territory through the window of the plane taking me from Singapore to Melbourne, and another of the Boeing 707 on the tarmac at Tullamarine airport, but as photos they are of interest to no-one but me. As you can imagine, life in Australia was full of strange riches. I was particularly lucky that my place of work was extremely sociable, and in October (spring) they organised a long weekend camping trip to Wilpena Pound in the Flinders Ranges, in the mid-north of SA (about 200 or so miles north of Adelaide, where I worked). The Flinders is a range of mountains about 200 miles south to north and around 50 miles east to west; jagged red sandstone, normally arid but that spring there had been heavy rain and we had a bit of a nightmare getting to the campsite. I seem to remember a flagon of port getting drunk that night, and this is the bleary-eyed lot getting cooked breakfast by an excessively cheerful friend!
CN71E02_Adj by Chris R, on Flickr
The Pound is a ring of hills with only one entrance, and was once used by a bandit to corrall stolen cattle. I think this fallen tree was near the creek on the way in...
CN71E07_Adj by Chris R, on Flickr
A couple of years later I was back again, on my own this time, and driving a MGB (NOT appropriate!), when I came across this damage to the road after another wet spell. The roads are just graded dirt, and eventually someone would send a grader to sort it out. I'm not sure how I got through, but I did get bogged and knocked the silencer off getting the car out! There is something truly amazing, coming from the UK, when you realise you're stuck, there's no-one for 20 miles in any direction, and it's, well, up to you to get yourself out of it!
CS73B-13_Adj by Chris R, on Flickr
Later that same year, some 100 miles or so further north at Arkaroola, we climbed a hill and looked out over the plain to the east, towards Lake Frome, a massive salt lake. This time it's dry and hot! That's a "grass tree" in the foreground.
CS73E19_Adj by Chris R, on Flickr
The last two are on transparencies, I think Ektachrome.
This shot was taken with my new camera on Kodacolor-X in Singapore, of sampans in the Singapore river. I didn't like Singapore then, but I did like this bit; a real sense of the original life of the natives...
CN71Dferr07_Adj by Chris R, on FlickrI didn't expect that the sampans would all be gone by the next time I visited some 20 years later. Now it's all cleaned up and the heart of the nice antiseptic tourist district, but what drew me has long vanished.
I've got a nice nostalgia shot of dawn breaking over the Australian Northern Territory through the window of the plane taking me from Singapore to Melbourne, and another of the Boeing 707 on the tarmac at Tullamarine airport, but as photos they are of interest to no-one but me. As you can imagine, life in Australia was full of strange riches. I was particularly lucky that my place of work was extremely sociable, and in October (spring) they organised a long weekend camping trip to Wilpena Pound in the Flinders Ranges, in the mid-north of SA (about 200 or so miles north of Adelaide, where I worked). The Flinders is a range of mountains about 200 miles south to north and around 50 miles east to west; jagged red sandstone, normally arid but that spring there had been heavy rain and we had a bit of a nightmare getting to the campsite. I seem to remember a flagon of port getting drunk that night, and this is the bleary-eyed lot getting cooked breakfast by an excessively cheerful friend!
CN71E02_Adj by Chris R, on FlickrThe Pound is a ring of hills with only one entrance, and was once used by a bandit to corrall stolen cattle. I think this fallen tree was near the creek on the way in...
CN71E07_Adj by Chris R, on FlickrA couple of years later I was back again, on my own this time, and driving a MGB (NOT appropriate!), when I came across this damage to the road after another wet spell. The roads are just graded dirt, and eventually someone would send a grader to sort it out. I'm not sure how I got through, but I did get bogged and knocked the silencer off getting the car out! There is something truly amazing, coming from the UK, when you realise you're stuck, there's no-one for 20 miles in any direction, and it's, well, up to you to get yourself out of it!
CS73B-13_Adj by Chris R, on FlickrLater that same year, some 100 miles or so further north at Arkaroola, we climbed a hill and looked out over the plain to the east, towards Lake Frome, a massive salt lake. This time it's dry and hot! That's a "grass tree" in the foreground.
CS73E19_Adj by Chris R, on FlickrThe last two are on transparencies, I think Ektachrome.
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I spent a whole year shooting Southern, Crewe and Weaste plus a few others I didn't use cemeteries for a college project.
