Turn of the Lock

Having come full circle and arrived back at the blue footbridge and lock on my walk this week around part of the maritime quarter of Swansea, I focused my attention on the bridge and lock rather than the churning water of the river falling over the weir (see Monday’s post).

footbridge mesh

Patterns, sound and movement can be seen below in a mixture of photos and video taken on both my Canon and iPhone cameras.

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No Fishing

This sign and its distorted reflection may say “No Fishing”, but the next photo below shows that there are fishing boats just round the corner from this entry point to the inner marina at Swansea.

no fishing

The other vessels in Swansea’s Maritime Quarter range from small to large sailing and motor boats of all types. The modern catamaran and the older style of sailing vessel below suggest something of this range – and all of the owners rely on the security the marina offers to keep them safe. However, I was a little taken aback when I saw the razor wire!

Lapping Water

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Eight Men and Four Women

It was a good day for my walk this week and the local rowing club obviously though it was good for them as well. They rowing up and down the river regularly – I don’t know how high up the river they go but in the past I have seen them up near the Liberty Stadium at Morfa where I enjoyed my walk last week.

rowing team of eight

I wasn’t able to capture the sounds of the rowers as well as take these photos but one of the sounds I did record at this stage of my walk can be heard below.

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My Walk this Week – Morfa and the Tawe

My walk this week is an urban one, although the footpath I followed from Morfa and the home of the Swans at the Liberty Stadium in Swansea, to the lake in the enterprise zone at Llansamlet, could in some places be mistaken for a more natural setting, if not rural.

Liberty Stadium at Morfa

It was a Sunday morning and although the length of the walk was only about 2.2 miles, it took me about 2 hours just to reach the lake at my halfway turning point. That is more because of field recording than photography but both played their part in slowing me down.

I’ll post some sound clips through the week but to start with, it was the structural patterns of stadium architecture and fence design that interested me.

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Looking South from the Beacons

As I approached the first, (or smaller) source of the River Taff, Blaen Taf Fechan (correction – Taf Fechan, see comments on previous post), on my walk this week with the Living Taff group, I took yet another of my frequent stops to look at the view. Looking south from the slopes of Pen y Fan in the Brecon Beacons, I could see all the way to the Bristol Channel, Flat Holm island and beyond to Somerset in England.

Brecon Beacons

England can’t be seen in the shot above which concentrates on the patterns and textures on the slopes of Craig Gwaun Taf which leads up to Corn Du, but the first of the shots below gives a pretty good wider view of the scene, even though the distant atmosphere was quite hazy. In the closer surroundings of the mountains the colours and patterns of light and shade kept changing with the passing clouds.

The Blaen Taf Fechan (below) joins the Blaen Taf Fawr (correction – Taf Fawr, see comments on previous post) at Merthyr Tydfil to become the Afon Taf or River Taff which then flows on down to Wales’ capital city, Cardiff.

These photos are devoid of humans but they were there and there was the constant murmur of voices all around us. It wasn’t disturbing or even annoying really, just present.

Pen y Fan Voices

Bay Campus – Reviewing the Walk

During my walk this week at Swansea University Bay Campus there were some beautiful sunny spells which allowed me to enjoy the campus at its best. However, below is the proof that bad weather will set in eventually! Even when the prospects look good for sunshine, these unpredictable days can so easily change and suddenly bring in wind and rain, even hail or snow.

dark clouds

My apologies for not providing any sound clips this week and similarly no soundscape to listen to along with the image sequence below.

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Building Blocks

My walk this week around Swansea University’s Bay Campus suggested to me that there were limited materials to work with when designing the place. I imagine that this was indeed the case with regard to finance (it always is), but it seems there may have been a restriction on the shapes that could be used as well.

Swansea Uni new campus-23

From my criticism of the architecture used, it might sound as though I don’t like the campus, but in fact in some ways I do. I enjoy the regular rows of dark rectangles set into the alternating colours of brickwork. I like the reflections of light in some of the glass fronts (see tomorrow’s post),Continue reading

Definition of Pattern

If the Swansea Uni students using the new Bay Campus have the chance to enjoy the beach in front of them, they will find, as I did on my walk this week, that some of the sand of the beach is made up of what appears to be old coal dust. This is entirely possible of course, given the industrial history of the area.

beach with black sand or coal dust

What I enjoyed about this aspect of the beach was the contrast in colour betweenContinue reading