rust in perspective

Rusty Railings Over the River

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.

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Perspective on Brutalist Architecture

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.

University of Wales Cardiff

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Town Texture, Carmarthen

The columns in front of the family courts building in the centre of Carmarthen where I have been walking this week, have texture and colour I particularly like. It looks to me as though the texture may not be from the stone that is used but from a surface addition of some sort. It doesn’t really matter to me, I just like it and took several photos. I selected two to post here and debated with myself whether or not to leave the blue of the shop behind the columns in the frame. I found that keeping it in helps both the perspective overall and also the focus on the texture and pattern of the second column.

Carmarthen columns

Monochrome Madness – A monochrome version of this image can be seen on Leanne Cole’s Photography blog post MM 3-40

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Water Under the Bridge

The old iron railing on the footbridge which I crossed on my walk this week will be familiar to those who saw my posts a couple of weeks ago about my previous walk on this route. I wasn’t originally going to include the sound clip below because it’s just water flowing under the bridge – but then on listening to it again, I changed my mind!

The sounds of that flow have three distinct stages: the first part has a lot of bubbly texture to it, including trickles and tickles, gloops and bloops, splashes and plashes (in preference to more technical language), the second is more even with those highlights less noticeable, and the ambience of the third stage has greater weight on the right hand speaker but with a gloopy base returning in the background – and then the sound fades to my footsteps climbing a dry leafy slope.

cwm-dulais-16

Water Under the Bridge

Sepia Sunlight and Reviewing the Walk

A final example of sepia sunlight for my walk this week through woodlands at Stainton in the north east of England. The pale sepia effect on this image seemed to enhance the sense of Summer. I hope you enjoy listening to the soundscape for the walk below while viewing selected images from my posts this week. All photos and field recording was done on my iPhone 6s.

kissing gate sunshine

Woodland Walk Sounscape

New or Old – Sepia Comparisons

It was the patterns and textures to be seen on my walk this week through the woodlands of Stainton, Middlesbrough, that prompted me to try making some sepia comparisons to the normal colour shots I took on my iPhone 6s. Often a sepia effect is used in photography to present an impression of age or times past. Because of the effect time can have on photographic paper combined with the fact that, pre-colour photography, there were not many options to producing the image in monochrome, the effect, produced digitally today, seems a fair one to employ to gain the effect of age.

ground level woodland

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Into the Interior

The second area of woodland I enjoyed on my walk this week is just a few yards across the road from the first in Stainton, Middlesbrough, but it is quite different. Walking into the interior it becomes clear (though not from these three photos) that the woodland was planned and the arrangement of trees is distinct.

This was the first time I walked in these woods for a number of years – the last time being not long after many of the trees had been planted, so it was good to see how the woodland environment had developed. Naturally there is little or no grass growing in the interior of the wood and this is reflected in the texture of the sound of my footsteps in the sound clip below.

woodland entrance

woodland interior

woodland texture

Stainton Woods