Irrigation and the Mallee
When I was at the Morgan photo camp with Gilbert Roe in early November I noticed that the stretch of land around Morgan and Waikerie was increasingly being transformed by the ongoing clearing of the original mallee scrub and its replacement by irrigation in the form of irrigated agriculture. This is a landscape is one of red sands, the Murray River and gum trees and the horticultural crops now being grown appear to… Read More
finally, another photocamp: Morgan
I leave Encounter Bay tomorrow for a 5 day photocamp at Morgan in South Australia with Gilbert, even though it is a little late in the year to be photographing in the SA Mallee. I haven’t been able to get away on a phototrip to the Mallee as I’d previously planned, due to the need to kickstart the Adelaide Photography 1970-2000 book. I am hoping that the weather in early November is… Read More
re-photographing the Mallee
In a previous post I mentioned how I had reconnected to an old photo trip that I made in the 1980s in the VW Kombi to Mantung and Galga in the South Australian Mallee. However, I didn’t mention that I had some re-photography possibilities in mind. On the earlier trip I made several black and white photos with a large format camera ( these are in my film gallery on the Mallee Routes website), and… Read More
day trip to Mantung
I made a day trip into the South Australian mallee along the Karoonda Highway on Tuesday. Elders Weather website said that there would be rain, cloud and sunshine on that day–conditions that are more congenial for my style of photography than the blues skies and sunshine that was forecast for the next 5 days including Easter. The dryland region along the Karoonda Highway was new territory for me, as I’d only… Read More
State of Hope: where’s the Mallee?
The latest issue of the Griffith Review is No 55 and it is about the future of a post-colonial South Australia. The issue is entitled State of Hope and it is edited by Julianne Schultz and Patrick Allington and it consists of short essays and memoir, fiction pieces and poetry, and photo stories. Authors include Robyn Archer, John Spoehr, Peter Stanley, Angela Woollacott, Kerryn Goldsworthy, Chris Wallace, Dennis Atkins, Nicholas Jose, and Ali Cobby Eckermann. This is an Adelaide and… Read More
silos + memory
I noticed this silo when I was driving from Lameroo to Karoonda on my way back to Victor Harbor after the silo photoshoot at Lameroo. It was near a little hamlet or settlement called Kulkami in the southern Mallee. There was no railway line near the silo. It was late in the afternoon and the burst of sunlight had gone by the time that I’d walked around the fenced area to find the right position or perspective to photograph… Read More
Peake’s sacred sites
Today these war memorials embody the Anzac Legend, which continues to lie at the centre of Australian identity. The Anzac Legend holds that Australian War Memorials represent the soul of the nation. The Legend’s current function and place within Australian culture is that of a creation story: it distills the Australian identity in one historical moment–the nation was born on the battlefields of Gallipoli. It is a creation story— nations are made in war—-but one that excludes the Frontier Wars in our Anzac Day commemorations.
ruins
The decaying and empty houses in the dying small towns is one of the most obvious features of the Mallee in South Australia and Victoria, and it is largely the result of the de-population of the inland countryside that started in the late 20th century around the 1970s. An era was coming to a close.
the first step
One notable aspect of the Mallee in the Murray-Darling Basin is that, apart from the various national parks, it primarily consists of agricultural landscapes, small towns, and minimal, scrappy native vegetation along the side of the roads.