My short walk this week at Blaenige, near Cynwyl Elfed in Carmarthenshire was a mixture of snow, sunshine, wind and a brief spot of rain – in other words, typical for this part of the world. I had to take it carefully down the steep track but on the way I found some great views over the landscape as well as some attractive details in my closer surroundings.
This winter has been so mild it came as a bit of surprise to find myself driving carefully through snow on my way to a meeting in Carmarthenshire. The meeting was at Blaenige, the home of MLR UK with whom I have been working for a while now to develop a StillWalks business package. The meeting finished in good time, and as I had brought most of my kit with me, I took the opportunity to go for a short walk down one of the steep hillside tracks through the farmland and woods.
There wasn’t a lot of snow and it was already melting during my walk but considering I hadn’t expected to see any this year, it wasn’t unwelcome and as the sky was partially blue, my walk this week, though short, was quite exhilarating.
One aspect of the walk which is changed with the snow is the environmental sound. Below I have included three sound clips of my footsteps in the changing snow. How much difference can you hear in them.
Crunchy Snow
Deeper Snow
Wet Snow
If viewing this in an email, to see the sound player you will need to visit the blog – please click the post title to view the full post.
Changeable weather can make it difficult to predict the conditions and therefore what to wear on a walk – rain and sunshine can be expected as well as rapidly changing temperatures. It can also mean that the colours to be seen in the landscape change dramatically and so winter colours can include the deep shadows of cloud and simultaneously the bright colours of nature reflected in sunlight.
These images just begin to show this effect with the colour in the bare branches and twigs of the tree or the reflective feathers of the ducks set against the slate grey of the water
The waves breaking on the South Gower coast near Southgate may not be the huge breakers that can be seen on some coastlines around the world, but I wouldn’t fancy falling in there on a day like this!
In writing this post about my walk between Southgate and Three Cliffs Bay on this wild and windy day, I realised that I had made the third image monotone. The strength of colour in our surroundings comes from reflected light and as there is so little light on a day like this, there is consequently very little obvious colour. In reality of course there is colour and even in the sea, if you focus your attention, there is a range of subtle colours to be seen. The trouble is that in weather like this the inclination to stand still and observe intently is rather weak and the sensation instead, is that the day is dark, the wind is wild, the rain is wet and it is time to get back inside, not linger too long on the edge of the cliffs however many colours there may or may not be.
And so I headed back to the Three Cliffs Coffee Shop at Southgate for another cuppa and to calm the wind that had been blasting my brain for the last hour or two.
This visual evidence of the prevailing wind on the South Gower coast with its effect on the hawthorn trees produces wonderful natural sculptures typical of Britain’s coastline. There are probably not many trees like the hawthorn or blackthorn with their ability to survive and thrive in the rugged conditions that come with the Autumn and Winter seasons here.
That’s not say that we have particularly harsh winters, but they still have to cope with the strong winds and sea salty air and I know plenty of other species of tree that do not welcome this sort of situation at all. I love these trees and I also love the equally hardy whin or gorse and, in this case, their silhouette against the dark grey horizon line of sea and sky.
This was the point the group reached on the Taste of Gower walk at Southgate. Looking over the edge to Three Cliffs Bay, it was disappointing not to go any further but the wind was very wild and this was causing difficulty for some in the group.
Having gone out again on my own afterwards, this was again the point I reached with my cameras and sound kit before deciding to turn back. I may have found the wind exhilarating but the rain which had started to blow in from the sea was less so.
All of the photos taken on this outing are rather grainy and in some cases they were a bit blurred. Considering the weather conditions, even if I had taken my tripod I would not have faired any better – it would simply have been blown away just as I was on one or two occasions!
Below is another short sound clip from my walk. For those of you with an interest in these things, the strength of the wind is evident in this clip recorded with my RODE NTG-3 shotgun mic with a Blimp windshield and dead cat fluffy cover onto a Fostex FR-2LE.
Wild Wind at Southgate 2
Exposed as I was to the weather on my walk at Southgate, I again used less exposure in these shots of the cliffs at Three Cliffs Bay on South Gower than was technically correct. However, as on previous occasions, this was deliberate and the result is definitely more realistic in terms of how it felt than if I had used the correct exposure. The result is quite Gothic in atmosphere.
The second shot is monochrome and can be seen on Leanne Cole’s Photography blog post Monochrome Madness MM 2-34.
I don’t know if photographic exposure is a thorny issue for anyone but speaking more literally, the subject of this first image is definitely thorny!
These images may seem under exposed but if they are slightly dark, that is because it was a very dark day for our Taste of Gower walk at Southgate on the Gower Peninsula. Personally I would describe the walk as exhilarating but I accept that it would not suit everyone. There was still colour to be seen on such a dark day – the Whin (or Gorse if you prefer) and the fungi to be found in the grass was a welcome break to the slate grey of the clouds and sea.
