My walk this week through Stratford Park in Stroud brought me to a viewpoint where I could see that the fountain in the centre of the lake is offset from the vertical and rotates in at an angle. The effect against the dark background of trees was quite mesmerising.
Photographing the fountain was great fun at the time, and also afterwards when I increased the contrast in a couple of the shots and submitted one to Leanne Cole’s Monochrome Madness blog post – MM 4-28.Continue reading
The park in question on my walk this week is Stratford Park in Stroud, England. I’d driven up there to see a friend’s exhibition of knotted tapestries – Anne Jackson in the Museum in the Park. It was well worth the drive and having spent an hour enjoying the exhibition in detail, I still had time to take a walk in the park.
All the classic features of a British urban/suburban park were thereContinue reading
This, the second of the walking routes for the Our Gower Project, included on consecutive days both wet weather and dry. While the dry was more relaxing, the wet provided both atmosphere and a different, and perhaps more varied soundscape.
The images below are a selection from both days while the soundscape is from the second (dry) day. Although I said the wet weather provided a more variations in the aural environment,Continue reading
The second stage of the second of the Our Gower project walks brought us out from the muddy woodland of Bishopston Valley to the unique beach of Pwll Du. It is unique because of its deposit of stones build up over decades of limestone quarrying in the 19th century. Below the stones is a normal sandy beach and wet or dry, it is a very attractive South Gower cove.
The first day I walked this route with a school, it was wet. Like the mysteriousness of the valley woods, there was atmosphere in the bay as well. The sea fret contributed to this along with the huge piles of stonesContinue reading
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
The second of the schools I walked with on the Our Gower project had no more luck with the weather than when we walked out on the marshes (see last weeks posts) – if anything, it was worse!
Bishopston Valley on South Gower is home to some wonderful ancient woodland . . . and when it is wet, it is also home to a great deal of mud. Despite the wet conditions (or perhaps because of them) everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. As well as Wellington boots, everyone had been givenContinue reading
The “Our Gower” project, organised by with the Nature Conservation Team in the City and County of Swansea, involves more people than myself. There are Years 8 and 9 pupils from four different schools working with seven people from different organisations plus the school teachers to experience four of the wild outdoor environments of the Gower Peninsula in Wales.
Tim Orell from the Nature Conservation Team is working with Gower Unearthed, Nature Days, and plus writers Emily Hinshelwood and Helen Nicholas to give the pupils an outdoor experience they won’t forget.Continue reading
But where is it, this King Arthur’s Stone? Well hidden in the mist on top of Cefn Bryn, the backbone of the Gower Peninsula.
The stone, a well known local landmark, forms the roof of a neolithic burial chamber and was originally brought here by melting ice.Continue reading