Tag Archives: texture

Choosing the View

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They say about TV or radio, if you don’t like it, you can always switch it off or change the channel. Similarly, wherever we may be, we can choose what to take notice of, we can choose our view. That can be a challenge sometimes, especially if what is in front of you is a blank wall, but when out and about we tend to miss so much of what is around us and I am as guilty of this as the next person.

That’s OK! It means that when I do take notice of my surroundings, a simple walk down the street can become an adventure of discovery. I don’t mean that there are suddenly different or new things happening around me to what’s normal, I simply find I have more interest in the normal things. The shapes and patterns, the textures and colours . . . of the sounds as well as the sights.

monochrome railings

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Steet Railings
monochrome railings
City Street
W—-T
Construction and Growth
Street Trees

My Walk this Week – Street Recce

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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.

Street Walk-1

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

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Roof Reflections
Rubbish Collection Day
Shop Fronts
Street Steps
Growing Wall
Wildflower Frontage

 

Tawe River Mouth – Reviewing the Walk

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It was a nice sunny day for my walk this week, though I still had my umbrella with me as an encumbrance. My final view of the walk was looking across Swansea Bay from the dunes to Mumbles and its lighthouse.

I have included a soundscape again this week to accompany my selection of images from the walk. Click the play button and then the first thumbnail to view the images in sequence.

Mumbles from Swansea

Tawe Walk Soundscape

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The Ground Underfoot and a Second Source

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Walking with the Living Taff group, our mini expedition to find the two sources of the River Taff, or Afon Taf, on the slopes of Pen y Fan and Corn Du in the Brecon Beacons, we took a short cut across open grassland to the second and larger source of the river, the Taf Fawr.

“Fawr” meaning big, the source was indeed larger than the previous one round the other side of the mountain, but the river at this stage of its life is still quite small as you would expect.

grass in the Brecon Beacons

Walking through the dry, scratchy, springy grass was a very pleasant sensation. We listened to the sound of our footsteps and thought about its texture and colour and the peacefulness of this part of our walk.

I managed to record a small snippet of this part of our walk and whilst the soft murmur of voices from the rest of the group is still in the background, there is also the gentle flow of this youngest stage of the river accompanied by the flow of a warm breeze through the grass and across the shoulder of the hill. We had enjoyed the skylarks too but at the point of recording, they had decided to keep quiet.

Taf Fawr

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Looking South from the Beacons

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As I approached the first, (or smaller) source of the River Taff, Blaen Taf Fechan (correction – Taf Fechan, see comments on previous post), on my walk this week with the Living Taff group, I took yet another of my frequent stops to look at the view. Looking south from the slopes of Pen y Fan in the Brecon Beacons, I could see all the way to the Bristol Channel, Flat Holm island and beyond to Somerset in England.

Brecon Beacons

England can’t be seen in the shot above which concentrates on the patterns and textures on the slopes of Craig Gwaun Taf which leads up to Corn Du, but the first of the shots below gives a pretty good wider view of the scene, even though the distant atmosphere was quite hazy. In the closer surroundings of the mountains the colours and patterns of light and shade kept changing with the passing clouds.

The Blaen Taf Fechan (below) joins the Blaen Taf Fawr (correction – Taf Fawr, see comments on previous post) at Merthyr Tydfil to become the Afon Taf or River Taff which then flows on down to Wales’ capital city, Cardiff.

These photos are devoid of humans but they were there and there was the constant murmur of voices all around us. It wasn’t disturbing or even annoying really, just present.

Pen y Fan Voices

Llansteffan Castle

Reviewing the Walk and the Week

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My walk this week has been taken in two ways – the exploration of Llansteffan Castle and the migration of the StillWalks blog and website. I hope that you have both enjoyed this walk and will continue to enjoy both the weekly walks and other developing aspects of StillWalks.

The sound clip below is a re-posting of the clip I included earlier in the week as I did not have the material to produce a soundscape for this walk. That will have to remain for a full production walk later in the year. In the meantime you can view the images in sequence and listen to the clip at the same time.

 

Llansteffan Castle Sound Clip

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View from Llansteffan Castle

Welcome to Day One

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Hello to everyone, existing and new visitors to the new StillWalks blog. Thank you for visiting anew and thank you for relocating with me if you are already a follower.

Insert your email to the subscription box in the side bar on the right to receive StillWalks images and sound clips on blog posts every morning – it’s a great way to start the day (or end it!).

NB If viewing this on a mobile device, the registration to receive emails at the bottom of this post.

Things should look very much the same on the blog and hopefully our migration here will be seamless. However, other aspects of the website have changed and there is now a new StillWalks package to which you can sign up or register an interest. To find out more about “Walking The StillWalks Way”, click the link to view a short presentation.

My Walk this Week continues

Meanwhile, back on my walk this week at Llansteffan Castle in Carmarthenshire, I thought I would start with a photo from the beginning of the walk because the view from the castle allows you to see into the distance, albeit hazy, and of course this is what I have been trying to do with StillWalks – see into the future.

Following on from yesterday’s post, a more detailed look at the stonework of Llansteffan Castle reveals all sorts of fascinating patterns, textures and colours. I’m not sure what is going on in with the surface patterns on the last shot, but it looks as though it may be additional to the actual stone itself.

 

One Day To Go and Well Camouflaged Walls

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These walls, seen (or well camouflaged) on my walk at Llansteffan Castle have some fascinating textures and structures but . . .  tomorrow is the day of moving this blog so –

Please read this!

Tomorrow I will be relaunching and relocating the StillWalks website and blog and must ask all followers who wish to continue receiving their daily dose of images and sound from the StillWalks blog, to click the link on Thursday’s post and the following days to relocate with me to the new website.

Thank you to all my existing and new followers.

Along with this relaunch we will be at The Waterside with publisher Management Learning Resources (MLRUK) to promote the new StillWalks package for organisations and individuals. That’s on 7th April from 10 – 12. Details and directions can be found here at The Waterside.

Llansteffan-16