I have been taking advantage of the recent overcast weather conditions to photograph in the Spring Mount Conservation Park. The park is small (2.79 square kilometres), consists of mature stringybarks (both Eucalyptus obliqua and E. baxteri), and looks as if it provides a good habitat for the yellow tailed black cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus funereus). We only see these cockatoos in Encounter Bay when they feed on the pine cones in the late summer/early autumn.
The Spring Mount Conservation Park is on a ridge lying between the Inman Valley (in the south) and the Hindmarsh Tiers Valley (in the north). It is in a high rainfall area and I discovered that it can be raining there whilst it is sunny on the Victor Harbor coast, which is just 15- 20 minutes away by car. I have been mostly photographing on the Inman Valley side of the park, as well as walking along the roads along the edge of the park such as the Mt Alma Rd and the Strangeways Rd.
The photo above was made whilst I was walking along Strangeways Rd with the poodles. This road runs east from Mt Alma Rd then south dropping down through farmland in the valley to Sawpit Rd near the Inman Valley Rd. It's a loop. We only walked a couple of kilometres along Strangeways Rd. I have yet to explore the rest of this road in the car. Nor have I walked along the trails within the park.
The walks that I have done so far in the conservation park are exploratory walks; exploratory in the sense of getting to know the area, scoping for large format photography, and figuring out how to approach this kind of landscape photography.
The strand of trees below look to be part of a plantation within or adjacent to the conservation park. I am not even sure if they are part of the park. I assume that they are not as the strand is on the side of the road and the mature stringybarks are behind them.
My explorations so far indicate that the best time for a large format photography photo session is overcast conditions and flat light. Mist and damp conditions would be a bonus, but those are winter conditions. I have managed to craft a few large format (5x4) colour photos, but judging from the above scoped pictures black and white would work well. Even using the Cambo 8x10 is feasible as I would not have to carry that heavy and bulky monorail camera and the required heavy-duty Linhof tripod very far from the car.