Still at The Helix to see The Kelpies on my walk this week, I have been looking at some details of these metal equine structures in the Scottish landscape. The setting sun was good to me!
Tag Archives: abstract
My Walk this Week – Windy Day in Colwyn Bay
My walk this week takes me back a couple of months to a working visit to Colwyn Bay on the north coast of Wales. It was a fresh Spring day and the wind was blowing strong. I think the image below describes the conditions perfectly.
Whether or not I develop a StillWalks video from all the material I recorded on this short walk along the beach remains to be seen. If I do, it will not be one of the relaxing ones – more invigorating I think!
The off shore wind farm seen on the horizon of the first shot below is an interesting feature, sometimes there and sometimes not! Depending on the light (constantly changing on this particular day), the turbines can become almost completely invisible or present complex repeating patterns as they shine with reflected sunlight.
Running into the wind
Windy Day in Colwyn Bay
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Abstract Concrete
Glimpse of the bay
Running into the wind
Crossing to the sea
Beach Bottleneck
I photographed Oxwich beach at the start of my walk this week. The shape may be a little less obvious in the shot below but it still reveals a bottleneck form. If from this angle the shape is a bottleneck, then the third image in the sequence below could only be described as a wedge. The shape seemed obvious to me and is the reason for taking the photo but I wanted to emphasise it more and experimented with the contrast in monochrome.
Having enjoyed the overexposed beach image I posted from the previous Taste of Gower walk at Llanmadoc, I increased the exposure on the last photo below as well. With almost no reference points in the image, what is real becomes abstract.
Beach Bottleneck
Young Whin flowers
Beach bottleneck
beach wedge
monochrome beach wedge
Little Tor, Tor Bay and Oxwich Bay
Oxwich Bay
Bleach Walkers
City Street – Reviewing the Walk
One thing (several in fact) that was often in the background of my walk this week along a city centre street were the gulls. As previously mentioned, it was a bin collection day and the sea gulls were pretty active. Much of the time their calls were largely hidden by the other sounds of the street, but they are there.
Street Walk Soundscape
Play the sound clip and look through the sequence of images at the same time. If you would like to hear more of the subtleties of any of my soundscapes, listen through headphone. Having said that, I always edit the soundscapes with the expectation that most people will listen without.
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Roof Reflections
Rubbish Collection Day
Street Steps
Street Perspective
Pedestrian Crossing 2
Bins and wildflowers
Walking down the street
monochrome railings
Construction and Growth
Reflected Conversation
street markings
car park
monochrome manipulated
Seeing it as it is – details of the bigger picture
Nearing the end of my short street walk this week I was considering how useful a camera can be in helping to pick out aspects of an environment. Without peripheral vision plus the ability to select a point of focus it is possible to present reality as abstract. I have not taken todays photos that far and the subjects of all these images are identifiable, but seeing it as it is does not necessarily mean there is an understandable context.
If you have seen my previous posts this week you will know that the context is a city centre street along which I have been walking, looking and listening to my surroundings. But taking the images of today’s post on their own, there is a great deal of contextual information they do not give. This means the photos almost force you to consider their more abstract elements and forget about the street or town they may be in – peeling paint, the pattern of broken glass, marks on a road surface and lines in a wall.
The penultimate photo below is in a specify location in a specific town / city. It can only be one particular place but at the same time it could be anywhere. I like the vertical columns in the background set behind the horizontal pattern of parked cars but wanted to bring some more attention to them give the image a little more individuality. So with a monochrome conversion, a little digital manipulation and a tighter crop . . .
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derelict building
glass and lace pattern
street markings
groove
car park
monochrome manipulated
Walking Under the Radar
Considering that the old WWII radar station on Rhosilli Down is in ruins, I was definitely walking under the radar when I reached this point on my walk this week. The light and shade on the old slabs of concrete made for some interesting abstract patterns in the landscape.
Goodnight Belfast and Reviewing the Week 54
My city walk was taken through the day but this photo looks across the River Lagan in Belfast later that same evening. The horizontal line of lights in the dark are christmas lights running along the crane featured near the start of the walk.
This was a Winter city walk taken on Boxing day a few years ago. There is only frost on the riverside footpath at the walk and the bare branches of trees by the crane to prove the season. However, a couple of days later the river was frozen over and covered in snow, but we had left to return to mainland Britain by that time!
Click the sound clip play button below and then the first thumbnail image to view the walk images in sequence.
City Ambience
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Frozen Footpath by the River Lagan
Wheeling and Dealing
Approaching Belfast city centre on this Boxing Day walk in 2011 the architecture becomes abstract when superimposed against the big ferris wheel situated beside City Hall. Seen behind one of the columned towers of the building, the scene takes on a Christmassy or religious appearance – ironic considering the role that religion still plays in Northern Ireland politics. So are the punters wheeling while the politicians are dealing?
This shot can also be seen in black and white on Monochrome Madness MM 2-41 at Leanne Cole Photography.
