Spotted Being Sheepish

Posted on 21/12/201321/12/2013 by Alastair

I was sitting quietly on my collapsible stool in amongst the bracken with the tripod and camera set up in from of me. Having mooched around the spot a bit, I had noticed that the camera nestling in the surrounding vegetation was not easily spotted.

This arrangement was not in order to hide from the sheep but simply for my own comfort in my endeavours to get some good shots of the landscape I have been posting about the last couple of weeks.

Waiting for the sun to rise and come round in the hope that the light would be good for the shots I wanted proved frustrating as the conditions never developed in the way I was hoping for. However, I won’t be sheepish about going up again any number of times – oh dear, sorry about that 😉

This week’s featured StillWalks video shows another representation of the woods in the previous featured video – the woods at Fforest in a snowy Winter.

You can use the Donate button below to help StillWalks. Pay how much you want and receive a high quality download of this week’s featured StillWalks video – “Forest Walk – Summer” which is at Fforest, Carmarthenshire, South Wales. Click the image below to watch the video. DVD Collections are available to order in the StillWalks Shop.

Looking The Other Way – Local Landscape

Posted on 16/12/201316/12/2013 by Alastair

To start this week I am looking again at the landscape around me. This early morning shot is looking the other way to that which was posted last week.

Looking north west from Graig Fawr the view takes in Carmarthenshire in late Autumn with the coniferous trees of the forest at Fforest on the left – see this week’s featured video below.

This week’s featured StillWalks video shows another representation of the woods in the previous featured video – the woods at Fforest in a snowy Winter.

Twisted Details – Oak Trees After Autumn

Posted on 13/12/201313/12/2013 by Alastair

Zooming in from the Welsh landscape overview in my previous post, I can reveal some of the twisted details of our local park. The oak trees of Coedbach Park in Pontarddulais, are wonderful in all seasons, but when the leaves are gone they truly reveal their twisted, crooked forms.

Photo taken on my iPhone 5c. Click the photo to enlarge.

This week’s featured StillWalks video started out as an experiment to see if I could produce an acceptable video using only my iPhone 4s to take the photos and record the sound. Here is the result – Forest Walk – Summer”

Autumn Rain

Posted on 14/10/201314/10/2013 by Alastair

As we move into Autumn and the rain returns, along with it comes a change of colour. This week’s featured StillWalks video is “Quarry Walk – Autumn Rain”. It features an old quarry in Carmarthenshire, South Wales.

You can use the new Donate button below to help StillWalks. Pay how much you want and receive a high quality download of this week’s featured StillWalks video. Click the image below to watch the video.

Last week’s featured video will revert to a sample length low resolution video but you can still buy it through the website walk under the Autumn Walks page.

Tunnel of Trees

Posted on 21/09/201321/09/2013 by Alastair

Looking for the light in the Ynystawe woodland before going to photograph the dressage riders at the Clydach Riding Club show last weekend, I peeked out from the trees to the fields and the River Tawe and finally headed back to the show field through a tunnel of trees. The dressage show photos can be found at StillWalks Photography.

from “Forest Walk – Winter” – Coming Out of the Woods

Posted on 17/09/201317/09/2013 by Alastair

Signs, scenery and a pony in the woods

Posted on 22/08/201322/08/2013 by Alastair

This was the view I had from Three Crosses Community Centre whilst waiting for the rest of the dragonfly hunting group I was with last week. It was very pleasant sitting in the sun with a light breeze to cool me.

Looking across the Gower Peninsula, it struck me that there were a lot of signposts. However, they did not spoil the view but rather created an interesting mix of patterns and structures through which I could see the natural beauty of the landscape.

We accept or learn to accept a lot of things in our need for order in society and the power we want to run our lives – like the millions of electricity pylons and increasing number of wind mills, sky scraper skylines and network of roads to name but a few of the interruptions to our views. We want what they bring and they do not necessarily spoil the view – it is more a matter of how you think about them.

Having said that, there should be balance in everything and we cannot afford to lose much more of our natural habitat – after all, the horses need their shade!

Three Cliffs Bay – Step 4, Pennard Castle

Posted on 09/08/201309/08/2013 by Alastair

Visit the StillWalks website for videos and more

It was a hot and bright day when I went to Three Cliffs Bay and Pennard Castle on the Gower Peninsula in South Wales and this can sometimes pose problems for the photographer. I hope I have managed to deal with the issues of light and shade reasonable effectively in these shots. There was some adjustment needed in Lightroom, particularly in the last shot, but not too much.

A sense of scale – These photos are, more than anything else, an attempt to describe the different scales of the surroundings and features. Don’t miss the figure in the first image, which, more than anything else, proves the actual size of the castle ruins.

The three other shots give a good sense of how difficult the castle would have been to attack at least from the seaward side but for me, I like the framing of the different elements of the landscape with the castle windows and entrance.