No Excuses – Photography and Memory

Posted on 22/10/201618/10/2016 by Alastair

I have posted a total of 14 images of The Kelpies as part of my walk this week and that may well be too many for most of you. However, I have reviewed them sequentially on a number of occasions in posting to this blog and found that they serve me with a good memory. There are aspects of our visit to The Helix, specifically to see these sculptural installations in the Scottish landscape, that I am pleased to have enhanced by the images. The fall of changing light as the sun began to set, the details of pattern and reflection in the structures and a hint at the true scale of the work in relation to myself and the surrounding landscape.

So for those who read these posts as well as those who only look at the images, I make no excuses for the number of photos of these magnificent horses and recommend that if you get the chance, they are worth a visit.

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Sepia Sunlight and Reviewing the Walk

Posted on 16/10/201608/10/2016 by Alastair

A final example of sepia sunlight for my walk this week through woodlands at Stainton in the north east of England. The pale sepia effect on this image seemed to enhance the sense of Summer. I hope you enjoy listening to the soundscape for the walk below while viewing selected images from my posts this week. All photos and field recording was done on my iPhone 6s.

Woodland Walk Sounscape

In the land of the Living

Posted on 15/10/201608/10/2016 by Alastair

During my woodland walk this week it was easy to forget that anyone else existed while in amongst the trees – except for the background sound of human activity. The traffic of a suburban area on the edge of farmland was not really significant – more-so was the rising and falling volume of the tractor at work in the fields, recorded on my iPhone 6s. This, however, could not detract from the enjoyment of the woodland environment on a peaceful end-of-summer day just prior to our holiday in Scotland.

Stainton Woods – Traffic and Tractor

New or Old – Sepia Comparisons

Posted on 14/10/201608/10/2016 by Alastair

It was the patterns and textures to be seen on my walk this week through the woodlands of Stainton, Middlesbrough, that prompted me to try making some sepia comparisons to the normal colour shots I took on my iPhone 6s. Often a sepia effect is used in photography to present an impression of age or times past. Because of the effect time can have on photographic paper combined with the fact that, pre-colour photography, there were not many options to producing the image in monochrome, the effect, produced digitally today, seems a fair one to employ to gain the effect of age.

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Arrangement of Trees

Posted on 13/10/201608/10/2016 by Alastair

Whether established or more recently planted to extend the woodland further, the arrangement of trees in Stainton Woodland where I enjoyed my walk this week, can only be described as formal. Reminiscent of the French penchant for arboreal pattern, there would be a closer match to their taste if the trees themselves were of a different species.

For whatever reason the obvious pattern of the trees seen from different angles prompted me to experiment with desaturation, monochrome and sepia effects when reviewing the images.

I am sorry I cannot tell you the names of these trees but I am given the impression that they are not going to grow to a huge scale. However, if I visit again in another ten or twenty years, perhaps I will be proved wrong.

Into the Interior

Posted on 12/10/201608/10/2016 by Alastair

The second area of woodland I enjoyed on my walk this week is just a few yards across the road from the first in Stainton, Middlesbrough, but it is quite different. Walking into the interior it becomes clear (though not from these three photos) that the woodland was planned and the arrangement of trees is distinct.

This was the first time I walked in these woods for a number of years – the last time being not long after many of the trees had been planted, so it was good to see how the woodland environment had developed. Naturally there is little or no grass growing in the interior of the wood and this is reflected in the texture of the sound of my footsteps in the sound clip below.

Stainton Woods

My Walk this Week – Suburban Woodlands

Posted on 10/10/201608/10/2016 by Alastair

My walk this week features two different suburban woodlands which are very close to each other and through which I have not walked for a number of years. They have developed in the meantime.

The woods are in Stainton, on the outskirts of Middlesbrough in the north east of England. As with any conurbation there was the constant background sound of traffic but as the woods edge farm fields, there was also the thrum of a tractor engine throughout my walk. Neither of these things detracted from the sound of the birds oe my footsteps on the varying surfaces of the woodland. You may gather from this that my walk this week does have some sound clips to accompany the images and a short soundscape at the the end of the week.

All photographs and sound clips throughout my walk this week were made using my iPhone 6s.

Stainton Woods

A note on the appearance of the blog posts if you are viewing them in an email – WordPress has been doing some odd things regarding the formatting of the posts in emails. The best way to read the post, view the images and listen to the sounds is to click the title of the post at the top of the email and you will be taken to the post itself on the StillWalks website. You will also then be able to click the “Like” button. Thank you.

Taste of Gower, Penclawdd – Reviewing the Walk

Posted on 25/09/201601/09/2016 by Alastair

To mark the end of each Taste of Gower walk we visit a local cafe, hence the name “Taste of Gower”. The Gower Landscape Partnership pays for the teas and coffees but there are always many other good things to be eaten as well, and that was no less the case for the Cariad Cafe in Penclawdd as it is for any of the other Taste of Gower walk locations.

The next Taste of Gower walk will be at Port Eynon on Friday 30th September (that’s next week). Details can be found here.