Having included this week’s featured video on yesterday’s post, I thought I would post some of the images from it.
The full video can be seen on this post if anyone cares to look – it’s one for the Autumn.
You can use the new Donate button below to help StillWalks, pay what you want and receive a download of this week’s featured StillWalks video. Sticking with the Gower, this weeks featured video is from Rhosilli by the Worm’s Head right at the end of the Gower Peninsula. Click the image below to watch the sample.
A beautiful saturday morning is not the best time to choose to go sound recording on the Gower Peninsula. Swansea airport may be small but when the weather is good at the weekend, it would seem there are plenty of aviators who want to get into their airplanes.
It wasn’t just the small planes that were out – the vapour trails in this photo prove the number of inbound flights to the UK first thing on a Saturday morning. They weren’t the only ones enjoying the sunshine. The sound clip below proves that the birds were out in force as well. Click to play or listen to it on SoundCloud.
If StillWalks is to survive . . .Following a similar model to that taken by some bands in the music industry, I have added a Donate button to the StillWalks website and blog. I must at least try this, if StillWalks is to survive.
The StillWalks Donate button – click now for a quick and easy way to get the currently featured StillWalks video in high quality full length and enjoy it anytime, anywhere.
Pay as little or as much as you would like or as much as you think it is worth and you will receive a link to download a high quality, full length version of the currently featured StillWalks video. Videos will be changed on a weekly basis and showcased on the blog.
This week’s featured StillWalks video is Troserch Woodland Walk. You can view the sample video on the blog or the website.
The advantages of ownership
Higher quality
No waiting for video to load
No stuttering video due to low internet band width
Transfer or download to a mobile device
Enjoy anytime, anywhere
The music industry and musicians have been struggling for some time now to find new ways of selling their product to us. We are all familiar with the reason for this – the free or virtually free availability of music via the internet. One of the approaches taken by some bands to move with the times, has been to offer their music for as much as people are willing to pay for it.
StillWalks cannot survive on goodwill alone and much as I would love to give away all the videos at full length and in full High Definition (HD), it takes time and skill to produce them and so, like the musicians, I am exploring all avenues with regard to generating revenue in order to continue StillWalks production. All donations are welcome and you will always receive the current featured video to download for use on your computer, laptop or mobile device (copyright restrictions apply).
Starting today, if you click the donate button and make any donation to StillWalks, small or large, you will receive a link to download a high resolution, full length version of the latest StillWalks video. Videos will be changed on a weekly basis and showcased on the blog.
If there is a particular one you would like, then it will still be available through the buy now system on the website but if you would like to quickly and easily build a collection of these beautiful, relaxing and unique videos, just click the donate button now.
At last, here is the StillWalks video I have been working on – a little reminder of the recent Summer. Sometimes I find that a walk can be split into two separate videos and that is the case on this occasion. This first part goes through the woods as the title suggests. The second one will have a different title and will be alongside the Morlais river which flows from the woodland down towards Llangennech and the Loughor Estuary.
Click the image to play the video.
Update – this video is now sample size and length only. Please see the post about the Donate button for further information.
Selected still photos from this video are now available on the StillWalks Photography website.
It was 6.22 AM when these sounds were recorded on my walk through Troserch Woodland. I had thought I might upload the StillWalks video that this weeks posts have been illustrating, but it’s not quite ready yet. Getting the sequence of images right and the sounds working well and logically with them, is important if the final result is going to do its job – give you a sense of place so that you can imagine being there.
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!
I know I am skipping a season by posting these photos now, but they are from a completed StillWalk of the same forest in Fforest, Carmarthenshire, Wales. It is a prompt to myself to produce a new video of the same place this Autumn.
Unlike the Fforest walk I am producing from recordings and photography on my iPhone (see this past week’s posts), “Forest Walk – Winter” is a StillWalks video properly produced albeit with my Edirol RO9 recorder rather than the Fostex FR-2LE and the RODE NTG3 Shotgun mic I normally use these days.
Following this week’s posts of phone photos from Fforest and the issues that go along with the processing of them for use in a StillWalks video, I have now reviewed the sounds recorded on my phone from the same walk and for me, this too leaves something to be desired. Below is a sample clip – towards the end of it there is some lovely birdsong!
I used the free RODE app for the recording but not the mic they make to go with it. Much as I would like to have one of these, the main purpose of my trials with phone photography and recording is to assess the quality that can be produced at the basic (free) level and compare it to using StillWalks’ higher end equipment.
I have finished going through the images for a StillWalks video and based on them alone, I would suggest that the finished product will be best viewed on a phone or tablet. The sound, however, may be more of a problem. It is likely that most people would not be aware that the sound quality is not up to scratch and that is understandable and no fault of anyone’s.
It comes down to what I call the “Wow Factor”. It is easy to accept lower quality in something if you have nothing to compare it with. However, the better the quality, the greater the impact or Wow Factor – whether it is recognized as such or not.
It is probably the sound that does most to take you to the location of a StillWalk and so it is important to me to do what I can to ensure this is as good as I can get it. The proof, as they say, will be in the pudding! I will post the finished video on the blog when it is completed and you can judge for yourselves.
