My Walk this Week – Architecture at The Glynn Vivian

Posted on 05/02/201802/02/2018 by Alastair

My walk this week is not in a natural environment but instead it is around the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery and Museum – unless you consider our need for creativity a part of nature, which I do! It is an essential part of our existence that we observe the things around us and it is a part of my own particular nature to enjoy observing what we call art, and also on this occasion, architecture and design.

The architecture of the original building is formal, balanced, symmetrical. The newer wing is made in concrete and the even newer entrance is largely glass. This is perhaps fitting as the building opposite also has a new glass extension as entrance to Swansea College of Art and the original design of this building reflects that of the Glynn Vivian.Continue reading→

My Walk this Week – Landscape Ageing and Restoration

Posted on 29/01/201826/01/2018 by Alastair

My walk this week is from the National Botanic Garden of Wales (NBGW), though it turned out not to be the walk we had expected as the Pont Felin Gat woodland was closed off to the public for clearance / restoration work. The images show one of the existing lakes in the gardens as well as the site of another lake from the past. This is being restored but in the meantime the landscape of tree stumps creates some fascinating patterns, textures and colours.

So we followed the “blue” walk instead and climbed past old farm buildings which also look in need of restoration. Again, the colours, patterns and textures revealedContinue reading→

My Walk this Week – An Angle on Nature and Construction

Posted on 22/01/201819/01/2018 by Alastair

My walk this week was slightly unexpected. I had gone to explore the docks area in Swansea Bay but found no access due to gates and security fencing. However, as I moved on I found a footpath edging a part of Swansea University Bay Campus still under construction. On one side of the path I enjoyed the effect of perspective on the site fence, while on the other the textures I found in the bare nature of the season.

So while I had expected an industrial walk in the docks, instead I got a mixture of nature and man made construction. The nature was partly in the form of a bitterly cold wind for whichContinue reading→

My Walk this Week – Misty and Bright

Posted on 15/01/201812/01/2018 by Alastair

My walk this week is a long awaited bright one, albeit misty at the start. It was cold and bit frosty but the sun was rising and as my elevation increased with a climb up a local hill, I was able to look down on the fog laying the valley below.

It was a beautiful morning only marred by the level of fly tipping on the slopes beside the Dulais River 😡 What is wrong with the people that do this? Apart from the damage it does to the environment, wildlife and oceans, are they also blind?Continue reading→

My Walk this Week – Rushing Through Swiss Valley

Posted on 08/01/201804/01/2018 by Alastair

My walk this week, my first for 2018, shows the madly rushing water of the Afon Lliedi as it flows down from Swiss Valley Reservoir on a very wet and gloomy afternoon.

The rain was falling but you can only allow bad weather to stop you going out for so long before it becomes a necessity for both body and mind to free itself from the confines of buildings.Continue reading→

My Walk this Week – The Golden Light of Dawn

Posted on 25/12/201721/12/2017 by Alastair

The day felt cold but looked good for my walk this week with the mist and the golden light of dawn. The natural colouring in the image below makes it look like an old photo, I think, with its sepia tones, but in fact nothing has been done to it other than a fairly restrained crop. I posted it on Instagram and Facebook and it got a few likes, but here it is again.

I started out on my walk from my garden, looking through the hedge to a “red sky in the morning”, as the old adage goes. I needed no warning about the weather though, as I was going for a walk in the woods anyway.

Regular followers of the StillWalks blog should be becoming familiar with the woodland that is the feature of this walk. Hopefully I am able to shed a different light on it each time I visit. Of course it is the light of the sun and the time of year or day that changes the look and feel of any location and on this occasion the woodland dawn was . . . hmm, can you have a muted spectacle? It was spectacular and though muted by the mist, this only made it even more magical.Continue reading→

My Walk this Week – Early Bird

Posted on 18/12/201714/12/2017 by Alastair

My walk this weeks starts in a multi-storey carpark in town. By early I mean about 5.55 am, which is why I was surprised that the first sound I heard on getting out of my car in this empty urban space was an early bird chirruping away! It was still dark and I was in an environment as far from natural as possible.

It was interesting to experience the ambience and light (or lack of it) in this structure in its unusual empty state and I was able to check out the patterns revealed in the gloom. The background soundContinue reading→

My Walk this Week – Towards a Dark Park

Posted on 04/12/201701/12/2017 by Alastair

My walk this week is a short one in two parts with my entrance to Brynmill Park in Swansea being in Winter sunshine and my exit being towards a dark park.

I am familiar with “dark parks” where there is little or no light pollution from human habitation and the stars shine in the most amazing way, but the night skies above Brynmill Park could not be described as being unpolluted by light. However, the park itself was certainly getting dark by the time I was leaving.Continue reading→

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