sunset

My Walk this Week 260 – Under Scottish Skies

My walk this week is a celebration of the different weather conditions we enjoyed under Scottish skies recently. I won’t say much more than that. As you will be able to see below, we relaxed to beautiful sunsets, cold winds, and water not just ebbing and flowing with the tide but also falling from the sky. On one occasion this produced a thunderous roar as the drops hit the tin roof above us in the middle of the night.

Night Rain

Not My Walk This Week

I am away at the moment and wasn’t going to post this week. However, I wanted to share a little taster of where I am and a hint towards future posts over the next few weeks. So check out the short video below.

Calm evening
100,000 sculptures

My Walk this Week 255 – Calm Day at the Beach

My walk this week is from Swansea Bay – it wasn’t the brightest or warmest of days but it was definitely a calm day at the beach. You can see from the sea that it was flat calm and the incoming tide featured not so much waves as ripples – it was very peaceful.

Fortunately Swansea Bay is quite expansive and this meant that all the people taking advantage of being allowed out (lockdowns and all that) still had plenty of space between them. I’m not sure how much the birds appreciated the calm weather – certainly the gulls seemed a bit irritable, bickering between each other as they do. It always appears to me that when the wind is up, if anything enjoys the blusters and gusts by the sea, it is the gulls more than anything else.

The colours in the images below show a darker day than it felt, but they are calm. The textures and perspective seen on the beach from thousands of worm casts really excited me but I did not get a satisfactory close up.

Mumbles lighthouse

My Walk this Week 233 – The Sea The Sea

On my walk this week I was mesmerised by the susurration of the sea, the sea. It was the light and colour that really caught my eye, but when looking at its gentle, repetitive movements and listening to its rhythmical shush and liquid intricacies I couldn’t help but be enamoured of the full expanse of Swansea Bay at high tide.

Still using my iPhone I am frustrated by the effect even a slight breeze has on its microphones – but the distortion in the audio in this video is not what is in my memory.

Being in Mumbles to run an errand with my daughter (Hannah Duncan Creations), we took the opportunity to walk along the seafront to the pier. The sunlight caught the outcrops of rock, made islands by the high tide, on which the lighthouse is built and the sharp edge made me think of the shot of Catalina Apple used for the operating system of that name. Looking at that system image afterwards, I was less convinced of any similarity.

I only took a few photographs and short video clips but the walk was a very enjoyable and welcome break from the darkness the seemingly interminable rain brings. It’s not so much the rain I dislike as the lack of light that comes with it.

Sea view from Redcar

My Walk this Week 228 – Fabric of the North Sea

My walk this week looks out at the North Sea from Redcar where I was working to install to of my audio interactive tapestries as part of the Fabric of the North exhibition at Kirkleatham Hall Museum. What a hectic day it was!

The North Sea

The work was successful and the exhibition looks excellent. If you are able to visit you will need to book a time slot via the Kirkleatham Hall Museum website, but if you cannot get there, the exhibition will also be online on the Fabric of the North website.

Once finished at the museum we took a short trip down to Redcar seafront. If the shot above appears slightly out of focus, you can blame the strong wind which is evident in the image.

I admit to staying in the car for most of this brief visit but other local inhabitants braved the weather and walked their dogs along a stretch of the beach I remember well from so many walks taken so many years ago.

No soundscape this week I’m afraid – just a short video clip of the scene to accompany the photos below.

 

Scottish Sunsets-8

My Walk this Week 226 – Spectacular Sunsets

On my walk this week I want to share some of my favourite photos of spectacular sunsets from the two weeks I spent in Scotland. The videos I posted while there could not follow the ever changing light for more than a few moments and the atmosphere created by the setting sun on successive evenings was literally awesome.

Scottish Sunsets-3

From the pastel tints and shades looking in one direction to the drama of a fiery sky in another, the reflections on clouds above and water below never ceases to amaze me.

However, I couldn’t photograph one of the most impressive evening skies I have ever seen. I was driving home at the time and as we crossed the border into Wales the sunset was unbelievable, unrealistic even! Yet it was real and will be one that lives on in my memory – it was a good way to arrive back from a much needed and, in spite of Covid-19, much enjoyed holiday. And we were back just in time for another lockdown!

Evening Soundscape – Curlews Calling

A couple of the curlews calling in the soundscape above are from one of the videos I posted previously – the others were separately recorded and are a natural (and phenomenal, to my mind) part of the evening landscapes/seascapes in the photos.

Click the play button for the soundscape and then click the first image below to see the full images larger.

 

My Walk this Week 224 – Away with Peace and the Birds

My walk this week comes from Scotland and it is not so much a walk as a simple record of the stillness, peace and quiet we have been experiencing in this first week away.

Three short iPhone videos tell the story – listen out for the cries of curlews in the evening – there is nothing else like them.

 

Post and all videos/images created on my phone.