Category : Photographic Experiments

A first experimental attempt at Astro-landscape photography.

An experiment with trying a Little Planet using a very short depth of field, so that only the dead centre is in hard focus. Like a lot of artistic experiments, it’s a bit of a failure, that teaches towards success. What it demonstrates to me is that it’s the crispness of everything at the “horizon” of the image that gives Little Planet projections their special appeal.

For years, this empty lot on Burwood Rd, the main street of Belmore, Sydney, has provided refuge to local wildlife, and a dumping ground for discarded furniture, rubbish, and unwanted stolen cellphones. Situated next to a public housing block in a lower socio-economic area, the fences covered in graffiti, this location has since succumbed to Sydney’s property developers, and is now the building site for a block of “luxury apartments”.

The title of the work is a play on the Serengeti, one of the world’s most famous, and photographed, ecosystems. “Ghetto” for the appearance of the site, in what is nevertheless a vibrant and diverse community experiencing the relentless march of gentrification, which tolerates no gentle decay, or fallow land.

This location was shot as found, the arrangement of the orange traffic bollards serendipitous, and was accessed with the prior permission of the owner. If there’s one thing that can be salvaged from the debacle that was the Belmore warehouse experiment, it’s that I was able to create this image. At its full native size, it’s about 3 metres wide. If you’re interested in a print, get in touch to discuss sizes and costs.

The final proof of concept for my Little Planet production process. This is the image where everything clicked into place – camera, panoramic mount, and stitching software. Shooting before dawn in this location yielded a number of images. The other major finished piece – Dawn at The Serenghetto Waterhole, was entered into the Head-On photo competition.

My first attempt at a little planet shot with my Nikon D800 and 60mm lens. 142 images total went into stitching this together. This is a proof of concept – as you can see the flare in the lens to the right hand side. I’ll control for that in future

The little planet of Enmore.

It’s often said of newtown residents, their horizons coincide with the suburb’s borders. Taking the new little planet software for a run.

Re-orienting the stairs panorama upwards, reveals even more interesting geometry.

When it comes to panoramas, this is my masterwork so far.

The other end of the Enmore tunnel, it’s a pair of staircases, perpendicular to the tunnel itself, and is the very reason I got into panoramic imagery – to hunt down these filthy run down inner city locations, and find the beauty of their geometry. I’m going to get back into it in a big way in the near future hopefully.

This tunnel is one of the great and interesting locations of Enmore. Said to be haunted (suuuure) it’s almost certainly had its share of muggings and unpleasantness over the years. It’s such an obvious ambush location you can’t help but feel trepidation as you walk through it.

At one stage it was filled with graffiti, really good graffiti that must have been decades old, well before the artless tagging style that arose in the 90s. Much of it actually brushwork. The council in their wisdom decided to destroy that particular bit of local history and repaint it all with a fresh coat of yellow. In the 7 or so years since it’s filled with grafiti again, but it’s all spraycan tagging crap.