Such as it is, the colour in the sky on this night walk round Hemlington Lake is a reflection of the urban lights in Middlesbrough. Despite travelling north east for the new year, the weather didn’t improve much for us and so the street lamps had plenty of cloud cover to reflect their yellow-orange glow.
It didn’t actually rain much on me during this walk and I really enjoyed the subdued colours, the silhouettes of trees and the night sounds of coots on the water.
My photos for today are in reverse order! The turning point for my morning walk is in the first shot and is a great place to see the sun come up behind some woodland to the left of the frame.
In Wales it is often said that “it has been raining, is raining or is about to rain” – see the last photo. I fact I would say the weather here is changeable, frequently changeable. In all the walks I have taken over the last 10 or 12 days, I have only got wet once – though I have had to put Dubbin on my boots frequently.
Photos 1 and 3 are from my iPhone, 2 and 4 were taken with my Canon 550D. The sound clip at the bottom was recorded on my iPhone.
If these photos tell a story, it is one of fiction in one sense and of reality in another. The first two shots present the sense I had of this morning’s walk through the woods to the top of the hill where the sun was fighting its way through the clouds. There was a lot more light on the land, the fields and tress, than is apparent in the photos but I decided to direct my iPhone to reveal the atmosphere in the sky rather than the details and colours of the trees or field. The result of course, is a much darker foreground in the images than it was in reality – unless you consider the sense of the scene I had in my mind. Taking that into consideration, the photos are much closer to reality.
The third image is technically more accurate in its presentation of the light seen at a fire break in the forest. If this is not such a dramatic shot, it is still a point on this walk at which I always stop and take in the scene.
More of the atmosphere of the forest can be heard in this sound clip – click the play button or the file name to hear the sounds of my walk through the woods.
The conditions on this morning’s walk were darker than on the previous day. This did not stop me enjoying the walk just as much and the darker sky meant that this panorama shot taken on my iPhone needed very little adjustment in order to accurately represent the scene over the hill at the highest point of my walk.
Contrasting light can be one of the greatest challenges in photography, so if the purpose is to represent the scene as it was rather than creating a more dramatic view, then it is quite convenient to have more even light.
And so the drama today comes not from the scene but from a detail of the landscape. The scribbled twigs of the tree in the second image could represent a snapshot from a stormy, windy day. That is what the angles, textures and movement say to me in this picture, but in fact the weather was completely still without a breath of wind.
I have only ever made one New Years Resolution and I have always kept to it – never to make a New Years Resolution. However, I have recently been thinking that despite much of my work being focused on walking, too much of my time is spent sitting at a computer. Production and post production, image and sound processing, writing and administering projects and seemingly interminable fund raising.
I have decided (resolved!) to make my health and fitness a higher priority and have been taking a decent walk every morning. I have taken the same walk with minor variations almost every morning for the last ten days or so, and only once have I taken my camera. The purpose is to walk, not to stop and take photos every other step. That said, I cannot go about the place without looking and listening to the things around me and so my iPhone comes in very handy both for images and sound.
Most of the photos I will be posting this week were taken on my iPhone and some of the sounds clips were also recorded using the RODE app on the phone. My Edirol sound recorder also fits easily into my pocket and so I have used this too.
These photos were taken at the highest point of my walk where I can catch the sun rise behind the trees.
And you can listen to some of the forest birds below as well.
Some alternative iPhone shots of Lliw Lower Reservoir. Having finished the new video collection, “StillWalks at Lliw Reservoir“, I recently had a walk there and did some iPhonography at the same time.
The photos were taken using the ProCamera app and edited in the PhotoshopExpress app on the phone and have also been posted on Instagram and EyeEm.
I am not a motorcyclist but there is something about the aesthetics of motorbikes that has appeal – or perhaps it is the romantic notion of “riding into the sun”. The bright green of this Kawasaki does not have the same appeal as the shiny red of the Ducati in yesterday’s post but it is still, somehow, a fitting colour for the machine.
I was hanging around waiting for my car to be serviced last week and took the opportunity to take some photos on my iPhone.
This Ducati motorbike was not parked in a position that would allow effective photography of the whole bike but I love the shiny red 🙂
