It was a nice sunny day for my walk this week, though I still had my umbrella with me as an encumbrance. My final view of the walk was looking across Swansea Bay from the dunes to Mumbles and its lighthouse.
I have included a soundscape again this week to accompany my selection of images from the walk. Click the play button and then the first thumbnail to view the images in sequence.
Tawe Walk Soundscape
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This sign and its distorted reflection may say “No Fishing”, but the next photo below shows that there are fishing boats just round the corner from this entry point to the inner marina at Swansea.
The other vessels in Swansea’s Maritime Quarter range from small to large sailing and motor boats of all types. The modern catamaran and the older style of sailing vessel below suggest something of this range – and all of the owners rely on the security the marina offers to keep them safe. However, I was a little taken aback when I saw the razor wire!
Lapping Water
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As I approached the first, (or smaller) source of the River Taff, Blaen Taf Fechan (correction – Taf Fechan, see comments on previous post), on my walk this week with the Living Taff group, I took yet another of my frequent stops to look at the view. Looking south from the slopes of Pen y Fan in the Brecon Beacons, I could see all the way to the Bristol Channel, Flat Holm island and beyond to Somerset in England.
England can’t be seen in the shot above which concentrates on the patterns and textures on the slopes of Craig Gwaun Taf which leads up to Corn Du, but the first of the shots below gives a pretty good wider view of the scene, even though the distant atmosphere was quite hazy. In the closer surroundings of the mountains the colours and patterns of light and shade kept changing with the passing clouds.
The Blaen Taf Fechan (below) joins the Blaen Taf Fawr (correction – Taf Fawr, see comments on previous post) at Merthyr Tydfil to become the Afon Taf or River Taff which then flows on down to Wales’ capital city, Cardiff.
These photos are devoid of humans but they were there and there was the constant murmur of voices all around us. It wasn’t disturbing or even annoying really, just present.
During my walk this week at Swansea University Bay Campus there were some beautiful sunny spells which allowed me to enjoy the campus at its best. However, below is the proof that bad weather will set in eventually! Even when the prospects look good for sunshine, these unpredictable days can so easily change and suddenly bring in wind and rain, even hail or snow.
My apologies for not providing any sound clips this week and similarly no soundscape to listen to along with the image sequence below.
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My walk this week around Swansea University’s Bay Campus suggested to me that there were limited materials to work with when designing the place. I imagine that this was indeed the case with regard to finance (it always is), but it seems there may have been a restriction on the shapes that could be used as well.
From my criticism of the architecture used, it might sound as though I don’t like the campus, but in fact in some ways I do. I enjoy the regular rows of dark rectangles set into the alternating colours of brickwork. I like the reflections of light in some of the glass fronts (see tomorrow’s post),Continue reading→
With the mist swirling around on my walk this week, the colours in this first photo are, if anything, stronger than they were in reality. I couldn’t remember for sure when it came to post processing. The second shot in this short sequence is even less distinct but is more representative of my memory of the scene.
The sun was going down on my walk across the beach at Colwyn Bay and as it did so, the light subtly changed. There was some hazy cloud cover in the west and so the contrast of light and shade quite never disappeared, but still had an effect on the atmosphere as well as my camera settings. The patterns in the construction of the pier were always there along with the colour, more or less strengthened by the sunlight.
My walk this week has been taken in two ways – the exploration of Llansteffan Castle and the migration of the StillWalks blog and website. I hope that you have both enjoyed this walk and will continue to enjoy both the weekly walks and other developing aspects of StillWalks.
The sound clip below is a re-posting of the clip I included earlier in the week as I did not have the material to produce a soundscape for this walk. That will have to remain for a full production walk later in the year. In the meantime you can view the images in sequence and listen to the clip at the same time.
Llansteffan Castle Sound Clip
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