Aha! Those objects I couldn’t clearly identify earlier in the week on our walk across Cardiff Bay barrage, are buffers for ships using the docks.
Although I find these scenes interesting and those buffers fascinating, I wondered what they might be like in black and white. It is perhaps best to say b&w rather than monochrome because I deepened the darker areas, strengthened the contrast, added some grain and left no hint of colour in any spectrum.
The dawn walk I have been posting about this week took me through woods I have often posted about on this blog. Unlike yesterday’s underexposed images this first photo is much more like the reality of the place. The second, however, is again underexposed – the effect of the morning sunlight and shade of the trees on the footpath highlighted the forms and patterns of the leaves and the warmth of colour from the just risen sun produced a real sense of the place at that time.
Almost there! No, I’m not talking about the imminent arrival of planes at Cardiff or London or wherever they are going – I’m talking about the sunrise which the passengers will have seen significantly before I did.
Early morning inbound flights can be quite a nuisance when field recording if you happen to be on one of the main flight paths for Wales and southern UK but I guess they are a fact of life these days. On this occasion they were not particularly noticeable and that would be due to some of the other sounds of the morning (traffic) and also the atmospheric conditions – wind direction etc. I never cease to marvel at the difference in the environmental sounds around me which are the result of different conditions from morning to morning.
On a positive note, the sketches on the sky drawn by the airplanes can bring something extra to a composition (disregarding the pollution of course).
My recent walks at Kidwelly in Carmarthenshire revealed to me a number of aspects of the local environment. The old canal, mudflats and birds of the Towe Estuary were among the first of my discoveries, but there were other elements of this area that contributed to the atmosphere of the place just as much as those more obvious features.
These trees had a particularly dry looking bark and colour to them along with their windblown direction of growth. These as well as the brambles and dry reeds through which the footpath led me, all contributed to my perception of the environment – one that suggested a much dryer place than could be the case.
I wonder about that apparent contradiction? Even the dampness in the cold air could not defeat the sense of a lack of water that I felt from the colours and textures around me.
For all the lack of colour in this image of the trees, there is a monochrome version of it featured on Monochrome Madness 47 at Leanne Coles Photography blog.
I don’t know what proportion (if any) of the people of Mumbles would go for proportional representation if it were available in the forthcoming May election in the UK. Disregarding politics, below is another take (or two) on the term that is more akin to cropping in photography.
It was a dreary day when I took these photos but, for me, that is no reason not to take them. The range of textures in the scene is what interests me most, from the finer grain of the concrete in the sea wall to the lumpy rocks and stones on the foreshore, to the fuzzy grey textures of the trees on the hill. All of this interspersed with the softer green moss on the wall and the sand separating the stones on the beach. And then there are the patterns and colours of buildings and people stretched across the centre of the frame.
At least it wasn’t raining!
Recently we had a clear but dark night amongst a lot of wet weather and I was tempted to stop on my way home and catch a shot of the lights of the Carmarthenshire side of the Loughor Estuary.
Even without the colours of Spring, Summer or Autumn, trees and architecture or nature in urban areas is a very attractive mixture. It was pretty miserable weather when I took these photos but I still found the blend of man-made and natural pleasing to the eye.
Can you see the eye in the strange mixture of pattern, colour and texture in the underside of this bridge? Even without the structural repairs, I find this common bridge structure has an interesting and attractive mixture of these things. The plant may not be a part of the original design, but it brings an added element of freedom to the control needed in the architecture of such a structure.
