My Walk this Week – Swansea Bay 360

Posted on 08/08/201606/08/2016 by Alastair

My walk this weak is in Swansea Bay on the beach in front of Crymlin Burrows and Swansea Uni Bay Campus will reveal what may be turning into an obsession with sand.

The tide was as far out as I have ever seen it and as I stood in the middle of its seemingly vast expanse and turned around the full 360 degrees I could see that the sand in this part of the bay is much more sculpted by the tide than it is in front of the city itself. This is not revealed much in these panoramic shots but I will post some of the patterns created in the sand through the week.

The soundscape of the beach is quite different to the wild blast of wind blowing on Colwyn Bay in my walk last week. Listen below to the ambience with the occasional distant sound of birds or voices from a small group of people and the faint backdrop of traffic.

Swansea Bay Ambience

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Swansea Bay – Mumbles

Swansea Bay – Hills

Swansea Bay Campus

Swansea Bay – Port Talbot

Dark Sea and Weathered Fence

Posted on 06/08/201601/08/2016 by Alastair

With the wild wind and dark sea on my walk along the beach at Colwyn Bay this week, it was with some relief that I finally passed alongside the safety fence around the dilapidated pier and up off the beach. In fact the weather was exhilarating, all the more so because it didn’t rain and wasn’t so rough as to make it too difficult to contend with.

Dark Sea and Weathered Fence

Colwyn Bay Wind Clatter

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Dark Sea and Weathered Fence

Triple Columns

Pier Structure

Fence Structure

Beach Exit

My Walk this Week – Windy Day in Colwyn Bay

Posted on 01/08/201630/07/2016 by Alastair

My walk this week takes me back a couple of months to a working visit to Colwyn Bay on the north coast of Wales. It was a fresh Spring day and the wind was blowing strong. I think the image below describes the conditions perfectly.

Whether or not I develop a StillWalks video from all the material I recorded on this short walk along the beach remains to be seen. If I do, it will not be one of the relaxing ones – more invigorating I think!

The off shore wind farm seen on the horizon of the first shot below is an interesting feature, sometimes there and sometimes not! Depending on the light (constantly changing on this particular day), the turbines can become almost completely invisible or present complex repeating patterns as they shine with reflected sunlight.

Running into the wind

Windy Day in Colwyn Bay

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Abstract Concrete

Glimpse of the bay

Running into the wind

Crossing to the sea

Overview of Cliffs

Posted on 21/07/201616/07/2016 by Alastair

The Taste of Gower walk in June stayed on the cliff tops rather than descending to the bays and we found a good spot to rest and get an overview of the cliffs at Three Cliffs Bay. We were lucky with the weather and although it wasn’t bright sunshine all morning, it was a great deal better than we had last year when we approached this bay from the other side. You can see these same cliffs from the other side on that day here.

The sound on this day was quite different to that of last year as well if you care to compare, there is also a sound clip on the post linked to above.

Summer Crickets

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Taste of Gower walkers resting

Three Cliffs

Mother and child – Gower Unearthed

Rosebay willow herb

Heading back

Rocks from above

Cliff structure

Big Tor

Posted on 19/07/201618/07/2016 by Alastair

On the Taste of Gower walk this week from Nicholaston Farm, before you get to Three Cliffs Bay, you skirt round the cliffs of Tor Bay. The walk has its ups and downs as you might expect on this South Gower coastline but none of us were going to attempt the scramble up onto the top of Big Tor. Somebody was up there but it wasn’t one of our party.

Another even more aerial viewpoint than this would be from the seat of a light aircraft . . . and someone was enjoying just that, as you can hear in the sound clip below. I like this clip with the inevitable clifftop wind and the faint voices of walkers and birds ahead of me. The airplane gradually approaches and flies overhead.

Clifftop and Aircraft

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grasses and clouds

foxglove and clouds

Tor Bay, South Gower

Big Tor, Tor Bay, South Gower

Seeing the Signs and Hereford Marketplace

Posted on 15/07/201615/07/2016 by Alastair

Yesterday I ignored (or cropped) the signs, today I am looking at them. My walk this week around Hereford city centre has returned me to the alley that precedes Church Street and leads out into the city’s markettplace.

Seeing the Signs

I have a soundscape for this walk which, as with the photography, was recorded on my iPhone. The clip below is one I recorded in this marketplace – it was not a market day but there were still plenty of people about.

Hereford City Centre

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NB If you are wondering what is going on in the panorama shot of the market place below, this is the result of using the “pano” facility on the iPhone in a scene where there is movement of people. The camera is panned around to take multiple shots of the scene which are then stitched together by the software. Without any “ghost” correcting, this can be the effect you get – it looks pretty odd but rest assured the pregnant lady has not been chopped in half other than in the image.

Seeing the Signs

walkthrough

pipework

Hereford marketplace

Sounds Down the Street

Posted on 06/07/201605/07/2016 by Alastair

Having crossed the road on my walk this week I continued walking down the street and found myself enjoying the various sights and sounds much more than I would normally in an urban environment. This was because I was looking and listening to everything around me – I was focused on what could be seen and heard and not thinking about what had to be done that day or a forthcoming meeting, none of the things that are usually going through my head on a working day.

In the midst of a busy working day and what can seem like cacophonous activities or surroundings, we can take a rest just by changing our focus and paying attention to the intricacies of our local environment, outside or inside, urban or rural.

The urban aural environment is obviously different to the rural – this is confirmed visually for me when I look at the spectral display for a sound clip like the one below. I am used to seeing the patterns of bird song in a sound clip and depending on the bird, these sounds show up at a range of different frequencies – the cries of the gulls in this clip are at a relatively low frequency. The highlights shown scattered across this spectral display create a quite different pattern and seemingly quite random – they are the squeaks and squeals of vehicle brakes. Some of these, the highest pitched, are out of my hearing range these days, but it’s good to be able to see that they are there.

Walking Down the Street

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Post box

wildflowers and wall

urban wildflowers

wildflowers and railings

Walking down the street

Sound clip spectral display – click to enlarge

My Walk this Week – Street Recce

Posted on 04/07/201603/07/2016 by Alastair

My walk this week is along a short street near the centre of town. It could be any street with mostly businesses lining each side in what were once houses. There is plenty of traffic but as I have claimed with StillWalks, there is as much to listen to and hear in an urban setting as there is in a rural one.

The sounds may be different, and it could be argued less attractive, but focusing my attention on different aspects of the soundscape allowed me to hear and see things that I would often pass over unnoticed – colours, patterns, textures to be both seen and heard.

So my walk this week is an exploration of an everyday urban location with the intention of familiarising my self to some of the visual and aural details in preparation for a full StillWalks production walk in the future.

The sound clip below is a bit longer than those I normally post through the week but on this occasion it seemed appropriate. There are many layers of of activities, starting with the sound of me closing the car boot and progressing from the car park onto the street. The sound of a drill as I round a corner is also associated with a smell for me – as I returned to the carpark later on, passing this same spot the pungent smell of sealant was powerful and made me pass by quickly.

Street Walk – Clip 1