Seven Acre Rock is a large rocky outcrop, 600 m altitude, which provides superb views of the Yarra State Forest, the Bunyip River Valley, and the Bunyip State Park in the state of Victoria.
It is located in the Yarra State Forest, deep in the logging area south of the town of Powelltown, about 80 km east of Melbourne. It can be visited by a 2km return hike from a picnic area. The geological formations of quite stark white boulders are surrounded by natural forest all around on the slopes leading up to it, but near the peak stand (and lie) the casualties of the bush fires that ravaged many parts of the state early in the year; the charred, blackened and truncated trunks of trees that were. They act as a quite aesthetic counterpoint to the chalky white rocks. This image looks out across the Yarra Valley.

Camera: Bronica SQ-A    Film: Fuji Pro 400H

This image represents my first foray into home C-41 development. The chemicals were a bit warmer than needed (at 42ºC) but still within usable range.

Method: The Nova Pro-Speed 41 ‘Press Kit’ is a two step C-41 process consisting of a short development time (in this case 2min 5 sec @ 42ºC) agitating 15 sec initially then 5 sec every 30 sec and then 3 min blix, continuous agitation (I misread the instructions and should have only done 2 min Blix for that temperature but it didn’t seem to matter).

I took this shot with my trusty Diana camera during 2007, when I was in country Victoria for the Daylesford International Foto Biennale, which has now transformed into the Ballarat International Foto Biennale. When we first visited this area in the goldfields, we were detoured down a mainly one lane road, occasionally surfaced with bitumen, but often not. As we bumped along, dodging potholes, in a pasture to the left I noticed this brick structure with large slurry heaps flanking it. I wanted to stop and photograph it then, but the children were restless and needed to eat, so we kept going. On my return visit sans kids, I looked for this place again and grabbed a moment of relative brightness from an overcast sky behind me to capture this image.
From my research I have determined that this structure is the housing for the Cornish vertical beam engine at the No. 1 Shaft of the Madame Berry Lead near the township of Smeaton, Victoria.
During the gold rush years this would have been a very active and probably noisy place, but now it is sitting peacefully in a field surrounded by the discarded materials from the mining operation with sheep for company.

I find it interesting to think that this is all that is left to show of all that industry and equipment…

Camera: Diana 151     Film: Fuji Pro 400H

* This photo was first uploaded to The Plastic Lens v.1 on June 29 2007 (comments transposed from that post to here)

Friends of ours live in country Victoria, which experienced some devastating bushfires early in 2009. We visited the other day and my friend took me on a tour of some of the areas nearby affected by the fires. It was wonderful to see how the regrowth was progressing in even the most blackened scorched areas.

Camera: blackbird,fly – no mask    Film: Agfa Pro 200-N