My Walk this Week 237 – Detail and Nuance

Posted on 18/12/202017/12/2020 by Alastair

My walk this week returns to some detail and nuance from this time two years ago – which tells you I have run short of time this week!

The image above seems an appropriate one for the time of year but it is not any association with Christmas decorations that interests me, but rather the natural outline the holly leaves have. Is it a lightening of the pigment in the leaf or simply the effect of light on its edges. Does nature have a sense of design?

It’s all in the detail they say (whoever they are) – I prefer to think of the detail as nuance. But nuance is only apparent when you look at, or listen to, the details. The changing frequencies of the quarry ambience and the flow of the river in the soundscape below or the patterns and textures of the various foliage and frilly fungi in the images.

These are a selection of the photos I took in this place two years ago and it looks and sounds as though that year was as wet as this one. Now I want to go back there and look again, not to compare but simply to enjoy the privacy of the space and the secrets it holds.

Old Quarry Soundscape

Play the soundscape and click through the carousel of images as you listen.

My Walk this Week 184 – Reviewing A Cold Walk

Posted on 06/12/201901/12/2019 by Alastair

My walk this week is another one from the past – a cold walk taken in the first week of December a few years ago and now reviewed with the envy of being able to get out regularly.

This is a walk route I have often posted about and one I never tire of, whatever the weather conditions. Cold, crisp and frosty, some of my favourite details of the walk are below along with the soundscape created at the time.Continue reading→

My Walk this Week 175 – Forest Changes

Posted on 04/10/201903/10/2019 by Alastair

Hello everyone, I’m back from my break and while I will be posting about some walks taken while away, my walk this week is one of those I have taken since returning and illustrates some of the changes to my nearest forest.

I have already posted about the timber felling in this woodland and I went there in trepidation of what I would find. In the first six shots below you can see what, previously, you could not! The landscape, beautiful as it is, would have been seen from this position through a thick latticework of branches. The blue sky would have been a fine mosaic seen through the canopy and theContinue reading→

My Walk this Week 141 – Exploring Down from The Mawr

Posted on 11/01/201910/01/2019 by Alastair

On my walk this week I went exploring a footpath I have passed on top of The Mawr on many occasions but never stopped for a closer look – until now.

Looking across to the Gower Peninsula in the distance, I stood and enjoyed the wind as it gently swirled around me and brought the sound of skylarks to my ears. Setting off down an old moss covered farm track, it wasn’t longContinue reading→

My Walk this Week 138 – Another Quarry Walk Through Time

Posted on 21/12/201818/12/2018 by Alastair

My walk this week is to another quarry but one that is quite different from that which I explored last week. The rock is not black this time but the sides are steep and I cannot imagine how the writer of the graffiti, still to be faintly seen near the top of the quarry face, got up there. Nor can I make out what is written as time and weather has done its work and taken most of it away.

It is 35 years since I first explored this place in my local countryside and I guess the plants and trees have grown up since then. I certainly remember it being more open back then, whereas now the small footpath leading through to the pool at the foot of the rock face is kept open only by a few dog walkers and young people playing on bikes, sitting round a bonfire or perhaps writing some more graffiti.

Dantwyn Quarry Soundscape

Continue reading→

My Walk this Week 127 – Forest Passage and Soundscape

Posted on 05/10/201801/10/2018 by Alastair

My passage through the forest on my walk this week took me from one half concealed entrance to another, past open field and marshland, along ageing track and abandoned rusty objects.

My entrance to the woods was through a rapidly disintegrating wooden passage (see the first post for this week) and my exit was through a small iron gate so rusty and covered in ivy that it was only possible to sidle round it rather than through.

My first photo of this gate was underexposed but I decided to keep itContinue reading→

Bishopston Valley Details and No Rain

Posted on 08/11/201731/10/2017 by Alastair

This walk for the “Our Gower” project extends beyond Bishopston Valley to the beach at Pwll Du, but I thought I would present some of the details of the valley which, with the dry weather of the second project day in the valley, allowed us to explore and photograph more easily.

We also recorded some of the sounds of the thickly wooded valley and made notes about the atmosphere of the place – how it made us feel, what its colours and textures were like and something of the history and geography of the environment. For instance, Guzzle HoleContinue reading→

Looking Back at February in the Forest

Posted on 20/12/201615/12/2016 by Alastair

Looking back at a year of walks through my local forest, today takes me to February when there was fog and frost and fungi to be seen on my early morning walks.