Stripes of water and sand on the beach and stripes of cloud in the sky at Oxwich Bay (see below).
On my walk this week with the Taste of Gower walkers at Oxwich Bay, the walkers ahead of me stretch across the beach and as the sun comes round I find that using my zoom lens (a Canon 70-300 mm 1:4 – 5.6 IS USM for those of you who are interested) brings out the contrast of light and dark. This both emphasises the striped patterns on the beach and the shade of Oxwich point in the background.
This shot of some of the Taste of Gower walkers on Oxwich Beach was take, as I discovered afterwards, at 12.01 or High Noon! For this reason I could not resist having a little play with Photoshop – see the last image below.
Crossing Oxwich Marsh towards the footbridge, the Taste of Gower walkers enjoy the sunshine and their company while I look on and enjoy the textures of the grasses and the colour of their costumes.
While the Taste of Gower walkers at Oxwich walk ahead of me I am able to take in some of the details of our surroundings both visually and aurally. Some of these details may be considered incidental or everyday things such as the seed head above, the horizontal shadow patterns of walkers legs or the vertical pattern of fence posts in perspective.
My walk this week is the first Taste of Gower walk of 2017 and took place at Oxwich where we walked through the burroughs (sand dunes with vegetation). The walk was led by James Malatynski and we had Charlotte Toft and Helen Nicholas from Gower Unearthed giving some informative talks along the way about the heritage of the area.
My walk this week has been along a very straight footpath that also doubles as a cycle path. I used to cycle a lot but my preference now is for walking – both are excellent forms of exercise and both give you more time and peace to enjoy the sights and sounds of your surroundings so I heartily recommend them to everyone as a means of maintaining health and wellbeing.
The long straight path I took on my walk this week is not all that long in reality, and neither is it entirely straight. Often when walking I try to pace myself and not rush off at the beginning as this allows me to do a longer walk without my knees giving any trouble. However, when the path is flat, paved, even and like this one, straight(ish), I find I automatically speed up and it can become more of a march. Had it not been for the fact that I was stopping to photograph and record, I would have completed the linear route there and back quite quickly.
The photo below is of something not generally considered very desirable – Japanese Knotweed – but I liked the strange sticky curtain in front of the field that it created in its bare winter state.
How early is early? For my walk this week along Aberavon seafront in south Wales, it seemed more like nigh time when I started out – it was certainly dark when I left the house but it wasn’t very early, about 7.45. That is perhaps to be expected at this time of year and I guess the murky weather I met with on arrival at the seafront could also be considered normal in this part of the world.
I wasn’t the only one about though, despite the dark sea fret covering the beach.
Seafret and Bird
