Cwmdonkin Park Recce, Swansea

Posted on 21/10/201321/10/2013 by Alastair

Last week I had an unexpected walk around Cwmdonkin Park in Swansea. The park is well known for its association with Swansea’s very own poet Dylan Thomas and it has recently had some work carried out in it with a grant from European funds.

It was a good time to be there as this work had been completed and the colours were changing with the season. The sun was shining and if it hadn’t been for the noise pollution of a park worker blowing leaves away with a noisy machine, it would have been perfect. The noise (which eventually stopped) did not stop me getting a number of photos on my iPhone and I will be posting these here through the week.

This weeks featured StillWalks video can be viewed at the bottom of this post and last week’s video will revert to the sample version.

You can use the new Donate button below to help StillWalks. Pay how much you want and receive a high quality download of this week’s featured StillWalks video – “Autumn Lakeside Walk” from Gnoll Park, Neath, South Wales. Click the image below to watch the video.

Autumn Rain

Posted on 14/10/201314/10/2013 by Alastair

As we move into Autumn and the rain returns, along with it comes a change of colour. This week’s featured StillWalks video is “Quarry Walk – Autumn Rain”. It features an old quarry in Carmarthenshire, South Wales.

You can use the new Donate button below to help StillWalks. Pay how much you want and receive a high quality download of this week’s featured StillWalks video. Click the image below to watch the video.

Last week’s featured video will revert to a sample length low resolution video but you can still buy it through the website walk under the Autumn Walks page.

The Sea and the Stone

Posted on 10/10/201310/10/2013 by Alastair

More sights and sound from Rhosilli Bay. There is no doubt in my mind that the Oystercatchers enjoy flying across the water of Rhosilli Bay, though I am sure that Chris Packham would tell me there is some specific and logical reason behind it – I am also sure that he is right!

However, I get great pleasure from thinking that they are enjoying themselves in their activity and so, despite all reason, I will continue to believe they are.

Footsteps in the Sand

Posted on 09/10/201309/10/2013 by Alastair

Rhosilli Bay, at the end of the Gower Peninsula, is a great place to walk. The cliffs above the bay extend out to the Worm’s Head and can get busy on a weekend if the weather is good. The bay, however, like many of the large beaches on the South Wales coast, has the space to cope with a good number of visitors and not feel in the least crowded.

As with any beach, the patterns and textures in the sand change with different conditions and the shells, stones and rivulets underfoot create a range of sounds that all have the aural backdrop of the waves and the wind. The colourful rock of the cliffs (see yesterday’s post) reflect and amplify the sound of the sea but walking away from them allows the nuances of the crunch of tiny shells or the squish of soft wet sand to come through.

And above all that, the birds. Walking back up the cliff, even the smallest of birds can make themselves heard against the sound of the bay. You will need to watch the video at the end of this post to hear and see it all.

The Sound of Snow – “Forest Walk – Winter”

Posted on 18/09/201318/09/2013 by Alastair

This last post on my StillWalks video from a previous winter features a sound that we don’t often hear in the part of South Wales where I live. The sound of footsteps in deep, dry snow is quite different to that which is made by footsteps in wet snow which is slightly more common here.

I cannot vouch for the accuracy of that old adage about the Inuits having fifty words for snow but I do know that whatever the state of the snow under your feet, the sound your footsteps make in it will be different, and I suspect this range extends at least as far as fifty!

Click the image below to play the video.

Early Morning Sounds

Posted on 30/08/201330/08/2013 by Alastair

I am currently working on the photography and sound from a production day in mid Summer at Troserch Woodland, Carmarthenshire, South Wales.

The unique field recording of the walk is absolutely essential if a sense of the location is to be conveyed. This sound clip near the start of the walk has a time stamp of 4:43 on the morning of 20th July and whilst the the images remind me of what the sky looked like and that there was a horse in the field, the recorded sounds take me (and you too, I hope) straight to the time and place and give me so much more information.

Sunrise at Troserch

Good Morning, you’re up early!

Three Cliffs Bay – Step 4, Pennard Castle

Posted on 09/08/201309/08/2013 by Alastair

Visit the StillWalks website for videos and more

It was a hot and bright day when I went to Three Cliffs Bay and Pennard Castle on the Gower Peninsula in South Wales and this can sometimes pose problems for the photographer. I hope I have managed to deal with the issues of light and shade reasonable effectively in these shots. There was some adjustment needed in Lightroom, particularly in the last shot, but not too much.

A sense of scale – These photos are, more than anything else, an attempt to describe the different scales of the surroundings and features. Don’t miss the figure in the first image, which, more than anything else, proves the actual size of the castle ruins.

The three other shots give a good sense of how difficult the castle would have been to attack at least from the seaward side but for me, I like the framing of the different elements of the landscape with the castle windows and entrance.

All photos are available for sale on the StillWalks Photography website.

Three Cliffs Bay – Step 3, Patterns and Rocks

Posted on 08/08/201308/08/2013 by Alastair

Visit the StillWalks website for videos and more

I am afraid I cannot tell you anything about the stone circles featured in the first two photos here other than the fact that they are at Three Cliffs Bay on the Gower Peninsula in South Wales.

You can see in the third photo where the place gets its name from!

All photos are available for sale on the StillWalks Photography website.