This final photo of the week was again taken with my iPhone but shows the view looking north east up the valley before I enter the woods to climb up to the top of the hill and look south towards the Gower Peninsula in the distance.
Click on any image in the gallery to view them in a carousel. The sound clips posted this week can also be found below. These will not be visible in an email – you will have to listen to them on the blog.
Overhead the sun and clouds were yet again proving the changeableness of the Welsh weather. This morning’s skyscape / landscape is another shot taken using the pano mode of my iPhone camera. I use this most often to widen the lens rather than give a long panoramic view which with this app results in bendy beaches and horizon lines.
Under foot the extent of moss growth also proves the level of dampness in this environment – a rotting fallen tree shows just a tiny bit of it.
The sound today comes courtesy of a Mistlethrush I think. I couldn’t get a good enough sight of it to prove its identity but from what I could see, I would say it was a Mistlethrush rather than a Songthrush.
My photos for today are in reverse order! The turning point for my morning walk is in the first shot and is a great place to see the sun come up behind some woodland to the left of the frame.
In Wales it is often said that “it has been raining, is raining or is about to rain” – see the last photo. I fact I would say the weather here is changeable, frequently changeable. In all the walks I have taken over the last 10 or 12 days, I have only got wet once – though I have had to put Dubbin on my boots frequently.
Photos 1 and 3 are from my iPhone, 2 and 4 were taken with my Canon 550D. The sound clip at the bottom was recorded on my iPhone.
The conditions on this morning’s walk were darker than on the previous day. This did not stop me enjoying the walk just as much and the darker sky meant that this panorama shot taken on my iPhone needed very little adjustment in order to accurately represent the scene over the hill at the highest point of my walk.
Contrasting light can be one of the greatest challenges in photography, so if the purpose is to represent the scene as it was rather than creating a more dramatic view, then it is quite convenient to have more even light.
And so the drama today comes not from the scene but from a detail of the landscape. The scribbled twigs of the tree in the second image could represent a snapshot from a stormy, windy day. That is what the angles, textures and movement say to me in this picture, but in fact the weather was completely still without a breath of wind.
I have only ever made one New Years Resolution and I have always kept to it – never to make a New Years Resolution. However, I have recently been thinking that despite much of my work being focused on walking, too much of my time is spent sitting at a computer. Production and post production, image and sound processing, writing and administering projects and seemingly interminable fund raising.
I have decided (resolved!) to make my health and fitness a higher priority and have been taking a decent walk every morning. I have taken the same walk with minor variations almost every morning for the last ten days or so, and only once have I taken my camera. The purpose is to walk, not to stop and take photos every other step. That said, I cannot go about the place without looking and listening to the things around me and so my iPhone comes in very handy both for images and sound.
Most of the photos I will be posting this week were taken on my iPhone and some of the sounds clips were also recorded using the RODE app on the phone. My Edirol sound recorder also fits easily into my pocket and so I have used this too.
These photos were taken at the highest point of my walk where I can catch the sun rise behind the trees.
And you can listen to some of the forest birds below as well.
Please click on this panoramic shot of Carmarthenshire to view it on a larger scale as it should be. It wasn’t a day of beautiful sunshine but you still get to see the patchwork of files that makes up so much of the Welsh landscape if you are not in the mountains.
