It feels like it might never stop raining – grey sky, grey days, grey mood.

I don’t feel like venturing far beyond Shellharbour.

After dropping my son in the village, I went for a walk out on the harbour wall.

Photos taken with Terrapin 6*6 35mm on TMax 100 and stand developed in Adonal (1.100).

Tomorrow the sky will probably be blue.

The pre-dawn light was just starting to come through the lounge room window when I awoke. I had slept on the sofa at my father-in-laws house in Teagardens where we were visiting. I arose, and prepared for a lovely dawn on the river after the huge storms in the previous week.

Outside, in the normally quiet street there was almost a traffic jam, and throngs were walking along the esplanade to the local ANZAC Park. It is a hundred years since the failed World War I invasion at Gallipoli, and the Dawn Service to commemorate, is a matter of national significance.

I left the house with my camera pack and tripod walking in the opposite direction to the human tide. As a small boy my mother had once taken me to an ANZAC Day Parade in Melbourne during the 1960s, yet she refused to join the Returned Services League (RSL)…

Last November seems long ago now, but I have finally developed colour photos of the sailing stones at Racetrack Playa, made just before sunset on our last day in Death Valley.

It was an incredible experience – almost surreal!

I will never forget racing across the playa with a 4×5 camera and tripod, photographing the stones, just moments before each lost their shadow to the dusk.

Afterwards, it was deeply satisfying standing far out on the Racetrack as evening fell, enjoying the stillness of this remarkable place.

Sailing stones

Shadow on the playa

On track

Dusk

All photos were taken using my Chamonix 045F1View Camera, with Rodenstock Apo-Sironar-S 150mm lens, on Fuji Pro160C sheet film and developed in the Unicolour C41 kit.

On the last weekend of September 1989, I answered the call to protect the ancient forests of south east New South Wales from being logged into wood chip. Our protests over that weekend were along a road which was being constructed into the Coolangubra near Myanba Creek.

In spite of newspaper advertisements inviting the public to visit these forests, when our large peaceful assembly and protest songs were detected (“rip rip wood chip, turn it into paper”), the Coolangubra was quickly declared closed and we were arrested. Of course this was claimed as victory by the authorities, but after a long legal battle we were found not guilty.

Driving over the Monaro and its treeless tablelands, which has practically been made arid by indiscriminate clearing and weed invasion, it is a joy to arrive today in South East Forests National Park. The tall stands of the Coolangubra still remain, and…

There is an is inevitability about Easter, it is going to rain. No matter whether Easter comes early or late, it augurs autumn. In some years the full moon is barely visible, hidden by clouds and inclement weather.

Notwithstanding constant showers, on Easter Saturday I was determined to get out, so we checked the rain radar and headed south. By the time we got to Nowra it was pouring, but seeing a gap in the squalls, we changed our plans and drove up through the mud to nearby Bugong Plateau. At least it was only raining lightly there.

Bugong is one of my favourite places. I have photographed its trees and flowers before, and each time it is different. In the rain and mist, on the edge of a wilderness, it feels mythical.

Mountain devil (lambertia formosa) in the rain

Arched

Wilderness edge

Rain is inevitable

All photos taken with…

Out on Long Plain, not far from the headwaters of the Murrumbidgee River and beneath Cooleman Mountain, are the Blue Waterholes and Coolemine Homestead. Across the Snowy Mountains there are high plains, where cold air collects and inhibits tree growth. Even in early autumn it can be icy.

Murrumbidgee – Long Plain

We arrived late in the afternoon, finding our way down the rough track which drops off Cooleman Mountain to the campground near the Blue Waterholes.

After lighting a fire and cooking dinner, we retreated to our camper trailer, to escape the wind and cold. In the middle of a freezing night a dingo started howling in a gorge nearby, and a few brumbies came past snorting at our camp on their way. We had seen a couple of wild horses in the trees near Coolemine Homestead and out on Long Plain.

In the morning after a bush breakfast…

I took last Monday off from work as I was just too tired, had enough, and it was an opportunity to spend the day with Melody.

Late in the afternoon we went out to the paddocks which she leases to agist her horses. In one paddock there is a shed we built for the horses, and nearby where she planted some shade trees, our neighbour (the owner) threw a multitude of pumpkin seeds. Our crop has been huge after all the summer rain.

Out on the pumpkin

Pumpkin vines

After cleaning, trimming and filing their hooves, she is a believer in barefoot hoof care, Melody let them into the second paddock. Here she lets the grass grow long, and sometimes cuts and dries it for a little hay.

Barefoot hoof care – Melody and Cherokee Spirit

Post and gate

Spirit, and the old boy Zim, enjoy grazing on the green…

On Saturday evening we visited the northern rim of Morton National Park near Bundanoon.

As the sun dropped beneath the clouds, the cliffs and gorges feeding creeks into the Shoalhaven were lit.

Across the plateau with falling evening light, the scribbly gums stood bright, ready for the night.

On the rim

Scribbly gums I

Scribbly gums II

Taken with Chamonix 045F1 View Camera and Rodenstock Apo-Sironar-S 150mm, on Shanghai 100 film, and developed in a mix of Xtol+Adonal.

Over the last month or so, I have occasionally taken large format photographs using expired Provia 100, but put them aside to develop later.

This morning when I warmed the chemicals, I noticed that the First Developer had changed to an opaque greenish colour, and might have passed its use by date.

Regardless I pressed on, and the results are either an epic fail, or just epic.

Colours enough to do your head in?

Flooding creek

Endrick River

Endrick River Bridge

Bherwerre Beach

After a little fiddling I converted the photos into black and white using Aperture with the blue filter effect.

Bherwerre Beach converted to black & white

All photos taken with Chamonix 045F1, using either Rodenstock Apo-Sironar-S 150mm (photos 1 & 4) or Nikkor-SW 90mm f/8 (photos 3 & 4), on expired Provia 100 and developed in Tetenal E Colortec.

Sometimes we wish that summer could last one more day.

At Bherwerre Beach, the surf was gentle and the sky overcast, but it didn’t matter as it was a day to be enjoyed. The last day of summer could be mourned later.

Headland

Driving home today from work I was contemplating this sense of loss, when in the background the old standard with the refrain “there goes my only possession, there goes my everything” came on. It occurred to me that the passing of summer might be a little like this.

A gentle refrain

Summer seems to feel like everything, a reason for dreams and living, and in its passing the closing of a door, leaving in our possession only memories to fill the pages of days, until the earth completes its orbit bringing again dog days in the sun.

Goodbye summer

Photos taken with Chamonix 045F1 View Camera, Nikkor…