I spent part of Sunday afternoon walking around my old photography ground in the industrial areas of Bowden and Mile End. Bowden was where I had a photographic studio and where I taught myself photography with a 5 X 7 view camera. My old photographic stomping ground was Bowden, Mile End and Port Adelaide.

I had a studio/darkroom in Bowden and I shot in black and white as I explored the decaying life in a rustbucket industrial South Australia, studied philosophy at Flinders University of SA and tried to disengage from photography mirroring the world.

movement in the rustbucket state, originally uploaded by poodly.

Returning there I noticed there were a lot of changes, especially Bowden, which is being transformed into new suburban housing estates. The old Gas Works had gone along with the working class cottages, the street artists had appeared, and there were even street trees.

This return to my roots was part of gaining a perspective to explore, and get to know how the state of play in photography in South Australia was becoming a culture of art photography now that digital photography has become the norm.

The photos in the Flickr SA group's exhibition is part of the SALA annual state-wide event that aims to widen audiences for exhibitions by SA artists, all venues are free and local artists have open days in their studios. Their work, which explores movement, is to be exhibited in The Austral Hotel in Rundle Street, Adelaide.

Some of the participating photographers have their own portfolio pages on the SALA site eg.,

Janet Leadbeater
John Goodridge
Mandi Whitten