If you have already seen this image on Instagram or Facebook of a sudden and unexpected sunset at the end of my Aberystwyth amble, then you can enjoy it again here. I was sitting in my car eating sandwiches before my two hour drive home and when I turned my head to look out to sea, this is what I saw. I immediately jumped out of the car and grabbed my camera from the boot – a good job I was quick too as a minute later the sun had disappeared again.Continue reading
This shot of some of the Taste of Gower walkers on Oxwich Beach was take, as I discovered afterwards, at 12.01 or High Noon! For this reason I could not resist having a little play with Photoshop – see the last image below.
Having descended to the valley bottom on my walk up Cwm Dulais, I crossed the small footbridge over the Afon Dulais (“river” in Welsh is “afon” just as “cwm” is “valley”). Saying that the bridge railings are rusty might suggest that they are worn and falling apart but the rust is only a surface colouration rather than a deep and weakening phenomenon. What I assume is cast iron is as hard and strong as ever.
My walk this week featured a range of mixed media. From the natural mossy trees in perspective and their shadows on buildings to a classical architectural foreground with a more modernist tower in the background; the intricacy of sculptures and the simplicity of the structures within walls along with urban pedestrian functionality. It makes for quite a mixed bag and all to be seen within a hundred yards or so in the centre of Cardiff City.
My walk around Cardiff this week encompassed not only the classical cultural architecture of the National Museum and adjacent municipal buildings – it also included the brutalist concrete architecture of the University of Wales buildings situated in the same block. The area is interspersed with beautiful formal gardens but it is not this that I was focusing on during this walk – I also get great enjoyment from looking at the various patterns, textures and perspectives created by the architects.
Moving on up the lane approaching The Waterside on my walk this week the winter bareness of the trees revealed the natural fractal growth of their branches against the sky. This first image can also be see in full black and white on Leanne Cole’s Monochrome Madness MM 3-41 blog post.
As I wandered along the twisting footpath behind York University on my walk this week the sun slipped lower and provided a wonderful yellow as the backdrop to a lattice of branches in the trees lining the path. There were many other busily patterned views on my walk around the campus lake with the hanging branches of weeping willows creating natural veils against the water or the network of fine limbs and twigs od silver birch against the fading sky.
Returning to the carpark at the end of my walk this week around the urban lake in the enterprise zone at Llansamlet in Swansea, I was met by one of the lake’s inhabitants! Knowing the reputation for swans being not entirely friendly towards humans, I was slightly cautious when approaching him – but he wasn’t the least bit concerned about me or anyone else!
