Ice Cold Frosty Walk

The route of my walk this week took me around the back of working buildings in Penclawdd on the North Gower coast. Although it was bitterly cold in this area shaded from the sun and the beautiful views across the salt marsh were obscured, there were still fascinating finds to be made. I guess they are everyday things at this time of year – frosty grass, icy pools and so on – but looking at the patterns the cold weather creates and the colours affected by the light on this day, I found there were any number of things to record, both sights and sounds.

frosty grass

Penclawdd at Work

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A Sparkle of Sunlight

My walk this week around the lake at The Waterside revealed some truly beautiful patterns of sunlight. That’s not to say these effects of light have not been seen before, I’m sure they have – however, that does not make them any less remarkable. I don’t think I could ever get tired of the wonders of nature, however small or common they may be, they still connect with my brain and spark my synapses to produce a sense of wonder.

 

The Waterside Walk-16

A Sparkle of Sunlight

After climbing the lakeside steps and shooting a mother duck and her single duckling (photographically speaking of course), I came upon the footbridge seen the background of one of yesterday’s images.

Crossing the Footbridge

Looking closely at the water flowing into the lake the sun glinting off the ripples made me pause and shoot again. My first shot was underexposed but just like the overexposed photo I posted during my walk last week, the effect was quite powerful.

The correctly exposed image is the first of the flowing water shots in the gallery below and this presented an interesting phenomenon – a bubble on the surface of the water appears not to be affected by the fast flow. I guess it was only there for the split second I took the shot. The underexposed image is the last in this sequence and I further enhanced the effect of light and dark, but only a little.

If viewing this in an email, please click the post title to see other photos in this post, thank you.

World Listening Day

I posted these sounds to all my other social media platforms this morning but held back until now to post it here.

The sounds were recorded during my recce walk for a new StillWalk video along a stretch of recently discovered river and woodland near where I live.

The video will obviously not include the Lancaster Bomber as it won’t be around when I do the actual production walk but it was good to hear on its way home from the annual air show at Swansea.

Click here or above to listen.

River Torrents

There was plenty of water flowing at the Lliw Reservoirs recently and during my walk in the rain I took a number of shots of the fast flowing rivers, trying out different settings and shutter speeds.

I have never been a great fan of slow shutter speeds and the “smooth water” effect it gives with flowing water. However, whilst using a fast shutter speed may show the explosive nature of fast moving water, slower shutter speeds will certainly help to represent the flow.

River Torrents

River Torrents

For the shot above the ISO had to be super high (6400) to allow a shutter speed of 1/1250 at f4.

River Torrents 2

River Torrents 2

Whereas with this shot the ISO was 100 and shutter speed 1/25 at f4.5.

River Churning

River Churning

Again, the shot above was taken ISO 6400 with a shutter speed of 1/1250 at f9.

River Churning 2

River Churning 2

And this one was taken at ISO 100 and a shutter speed of 1/25 at f7.1

The camera was a Canon 550D and the lens was the Canon EF70 – 300mm IS USM.

And for those who are interested, the changing sounds of the river as the flow varies  alongside the footpath (4:22 mins).