South Road: An experiment 1

I have often thought about walking along Adelaide's South Rd in the late afternoon taking photos of this urban stretch. I drive along this road  every time I go to and from Adelaide to Encounter Bay.   It looks interesting with all the different signs, architecture and colours. It's all mixed up, chaotic  jumble. 

However, South Rd is Adelaide's  main north south corridor and at peak hour it is  jammed with cars in the late afternoon. It is noisey and full of fumes,  and so I have  backed off walking along it. Breathing all those fumes  would not be  good for one's health.  Still, I find photographing South Rd in the late afternoon winter light intriguing.  

I  tried an experiment recently: --taking photos through  a car window. The opportunity arose  when we were returning from Blinman after being on a camel trek from Blinman to Lake Frome, as I was  sitting  in the back seat  and Suzanne was driving towards the Southern Expressway.   


I wound the  back window on the left  side of the car down. The basic concept was simple: to take a photo when the car stopped in traffic. It is unlike the Conceptual artists of the 1960s. They preconceived a conceptual project that they  then carries out with photographs. However,  photography was only useful or interesting to them insofar as it was instrumental in conveying or recording their ideas. These artists describe the photographs themselves as either brute information or uninflected documentation. The  1960s conceptual tradition  held photography as a specific medium  with its  rich history and formal conventions  at arm’s length. 

It's a slow grind in a car down South Rd during the  week day  pm  peak hour.  The car often moves slowly due to  all the traffic lights in the Edwardstown/St Mary's  area. This is old South Rd. In coming years this section  will be modernised as it has become a bottleneck.   

I did make  some  photos whilst the car was moving,  but it was the taking a photo when the car stopped that was the key to this experiment. I had no control over what I was photographng. Even so, the pictures work within a  traditional documentary framework.   

Will this experiment encourage me to find the courage to  walk South Rd; say the sleazer end from Daws Rd to the Southern Expressway?  It is still  something that I'd like to do, even with the horrible conditions for walking/photography.