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 reasonably cool (it does not get too hot),  the mosquitos are few and far between and there is some cloud cover .

Though I haven’t been able to go on road trips in the Mallee  during the late winter and early spring  months,.  I have been looking at other bodies  of work that bear some kind of  resemblance to Mallee Routes.  One is  the Desert Cantos by  Richard Misrach, a  significant and  remarkable body of work of the deserts of the American West, begun in 1979.  It  is evaluated in this essay by Gerry Badger.

Another  project that has cross overs with multiyear Mallee Routes is   the  Mojave Project. I came across this   courtesy of Stu Art who came upon it whilst cruising the internet looking for material on Gregory Halpern’s Zzyzx book. The Mojave Project  a fascinating,  transmedia project (photographs, maps, film shorts ) that  explores the  history of place while also examining how the landscapes that people  inhabit are culturally constructed.

What I find  fascinating  are  Kim Stringfellow’s photographs,  especially some of the landscapes.

A core  difference is that Mallee Routes is very modest compared to the depth and breadth of the Mojave project, which has distinct themes and field  reports involving interviews, reportage and personal journaling.   A second difference is that  Mallee Routes is DIY (we are on our own), whereas the Mojave Project  is supported and funded  by a variety of institutions, some of whom are project planners.