City / Sea 

 

Digital print on archival rag paper. Capture with Zeiss Ikon 120mm film capture, multiple exposure photograph comprising a number of 6 x 9 cm frames. 50.8 cm x 246.38cm. 2 Giclee prints captured at two locations in August 2021, printed late February 2023 for exhibition.

This image was created by underexposing an initial capture [purposely overlapped frames] at Tennyson Beach, with subsequent exposure of the rewound film at the intersection of North Terrace and Kintore Avenue, Adelaide.  Double exposure of the film involves deliberately anticipating the light conditions as prevail for the initial exposure, and also the subsequent exposure. The total of the 2 exposures must combine for a 'correct' exposure of the resultant image.

The initial sea capture in afternoon light was followed by an early morning photo shoot to achieve the second film exposure on a clear day, at an hour when traffic was at minimal flow.

In its 2022 climate impact assessment, the International Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] reported on climate impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, concluding that some 3 billion people are highly vulnerable to climate impacts - mostly from the globes least responsible regions. Climate change is accordingly closely tied to climate injustice. Drought, food and water depletion and sea level rise, comprise major imminent threats.

Scientists predict that climate related warming oceans will result in inundation of low-lying lands. In SA, forecasts of sea level rise indicate that many suburban beaches will be lost to tidal impacts by 2050, with an anticipated average sea level rise of 1 metre by the turn of the century. Whilst the die is cast in terms of tidal change that cannot be harnessed [even if injurious CO² and methane gas emissions ceased globally and immediately], curbing emissions may result in longer-term sea-level rise mitigation.

As a way of raising awareness of impending changes to sea levels, Ross turned to analogue photographic processes as a means of visually testing how the appearance of a shifting shoreline may present in the city of Adelaide. Although such scenario is currently not predicted as likely in the shorter term, City / Sea suggests a scenario that is akin to inundation already being experienced by communities globally. Rising seas will displace communities, which in turn will test migration laws and policies globally.