If you were only to look at the images below, the scene in Brynmill Park, Swansea might appear quite tranquil, but the park is full of all sorts of sounds let alone the background ambience of the city. Bouncing balls and babies are just a couple of the elements to the park’s soundscape but I will be posting a more comprehensive edited recording of the sound landscape at the end of the week.
Bouncing Balls and Babies
Unlike yesterday’s post, I can name at least a couple of the flowers in the photos below.
If viewing this in an email, please click the post title to see other photos in this post, thank you.
My walk this week was taken on a day that held a number of meetings for me, not least the Swansea Walking Forum meeting in Brynmill Park. Having a gap between other meetings in the morning, I was able to take my camera and sound kit around the lakeside and found the place being well used during the school Summer holidays.
You can’t tell from these shots how well the park is used but perhaps the sound clip below will prove the existence of people (and traffic) in this city park.
A Sneeze in the Park
If viewing this in an email, please click the post title to see other photos in this post, thank you.
My walk this week is from Nash Point on the South Wales coast. It is a place that holds memories for me, not least of which is a schools / RNLI project I did with HyperAction some years ago – “Launch the Lifeboats, Stories of Wreck and Rescue in the Bristol Channel”. Other memories are of the cliff lined, wave platform shoreline between Nash Point and Monknash where I produced the StillWalks video “Breakers Walk” for CARIAD, the research unit at Cardiff Metropolitan University.
The lighthouse, its foghorn (no longer used but listen below) and the cliffs with the wave platform at their foot makes this a truly amazing place.
Nash Point Lighthouse
It was pretty windy when we were there and I did not get much done in the way of field recording. – that is not what we were there for. I didn’t even take my camera so all photography for my walk this week was done on my iPhone.
I recorded the clip below on the “Lifeboats” project and you will be able to hear the wind between the blasts of the fog horn if you are not too blown away by the horn itself!
The last stage of this circular Taste of Gower walk is enjoyable for the same kind of reason as the stepping stones are when crossing Pennard Pill (river) in Three Cliffs Bay – it’s fun, a novelty, a change underfoot from the normal footpath surface, not only in feel but also in sound.
Doing the Boardwalk
If viewing this in an email, please click the post title to see other photos in this post, thank you.
These stones arranged in circles at Three Cliffs Bay on South Gower have been there as long as I can remember (which is not necessarily all that long!), but I don’t think they go back to neolithic times. People’s footsteps have worn the ground down over time as they walk around the pattern and if it is a construction of modern times, then it is perhaps remarkable that it has remained without damage or rearrangement for so long. Is this a sign of our respect for our ancient past, even though it may be an installation of modern times, or do we just like and respond to the pattern and texture of the arrangement.
And thinking of textures and patterns, I was taken with the grasses growing alongside Pennard Pill as it twists down the valley to the bay. The subtly changing flow of the grasses in the wind, their hues of blues, yellows and greens and the dots of white and buff grass seeds and flowers remind me of the circles of stones, at least when viewed in monochrome.
Stones in Circles
Those changing textures and patterns can also be perceived in sound. The clip below presents the susurrus (there’s that word again) of my footsteps, firstly in soft sand and then through flickering, tickering grasses as my feet brush through them on my way to catch up with the other walkers.
If viewing this in an email, please click the post title to see other photos in this post, thank you.
Leaving the woodland by a kissing gate on my walk this week held the Taste of Gower group of walkers up enough for me to catch up with them . . . momentarily! It wasn’t long before their conversation became a murmur in the distance and the quietening ambience took over in this area between the woodland and the sea of the Bristol Channel.
The next Taste of Gower walk will be this coming Friday 26/08/17 –details here.
Quietening Ambience
If viewing this in an email, please click the post title to see other photos in this post, thank you.
Ascending further along my misty mountain route on my walk this week, the landscape below me may have been obscured but the colours and patterns in the path-side rocks could still clearly be seen, albeit less bright than would have been the case in sunshine.
Almost at the top I sheltered from the wild wind in a hollow at the side of the mountain track and recorded the blustering wind and the plaintive bleats of distant sheep and began to despair at the possibility of getting the views I had hoped for.
Colour and pattern
Mountain Wind
If viewing this in an email, please click the post title to see other photos in this post, thank you.
While the patterns in sand I have been looking at on my walk this week have been details of the beach in Swansea Bay, there are also interesting patterns and textures to be seen from longer, wider viewpoints. In this first shot today I like the gradual fading of the reflected light on wet sand as it transitions to drying sand.
In the second photo the pattern was subtle, perhaps more-so in reality than it is in the image but still noticeably there and resembling a tiger’s stripes. While I enjoy nuance within imagery and my surroundings, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at this pattern strengthened and converting to monochrome and increasing the contrast was one relatively quick way to do this.
Beach Perspective
Dry and Drying
monochrome sand
There was subtlety in the sounds of the beach on this walk as well as in the patterns of sand. I got my recorder out again as soon as I heard my footsteps on top of one of the sand banks where the surface still retained water and the rhythm of my footsteps created a fizz of compressed sand and released moisture. The passing of a distant small aircraft only seemed to emphasise the peace of the beach at this stage of my walk.
