Tag Archives: weather

My Walk this Week 18 – First Snow

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This winter has been so mild it came as a bit of surprise to find myself driving carefully through snow on my way to a meeting in Carmarthenshire. The meeting was at Blaenige, the home of MLR UK with whom I have been working for a while now to develop a StillWalks business package. The meeting finished in good time, and as I had brought most of my kit with me, I took the opportunity to go for a short walk down one of the steep hillside tracks through the farmland and woods.

There wasn’t a lot of snow and it was already melting during my walk but considering I hadn’t expected to see any this year, it wasn’t unwelcome and as the sky was partially blue, my walk this week, though short, was quite exhilarating.

Blaenige, Carmarthenshire

One aspect of the walk which is changed with the snow is the environmental sound. Below I have included three sound clips of my footsteps in the changing snow. How much difference can you hear in them.

Crunchy Snow

Deeper Snow

Wet Snow

If viewing this in an email, to see the sound player you will need to visit the blog – please click the post title to view the full post.

Suburban Lakeside Soundscape and Reviewing the Week 52

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While my walk this week has not appeared very wintry, the photos were taken and the sound recorded in January and though there is no ice or snow to be seen, it seems that mild winters are now a feature of the seasons in many parts of Britain.

I hope you have enjoyed the first of my walks in 2016 and I look forward to posting many more this year.

Hemlington Lake

Try listening to the soundscape of the walk while viewing the images in sequence – click the play button and then the first thumbnail below.

Suburban Lakeside Soundscape Sample

If viewing this in an email, to see the sound player you will need to visit the blog – please click the post title to view the full post.

Winter Colours

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Changeable weather can make it difficult to predict the conditions and therefore what to wear on a walk – rain and sunshine can be expected as well as rapidly changing temperatures. It can also mean that the colours to be seen in the landscape change dramatically and so winter colours can include the deep shadows of cloud and simultaneously the bright colours of nature reflected in sunlight.

These images just begin to show this effect with the colour in the bare branches and twigs of the tree or the reflective feathers of the ducks set against the slate grey of the water

Hemlington Lakeside

Mallard

Ducks

Pattern, Light and the State of Stanchions

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Liquid patterns in water can be mesmerising but I also love the patterns created by these platform stanchions in their different states at the edge of Hemlington Lake. I guess those twisting in a double row along the lakeside are from previous fishing platforms, although their arrangement suggests the platform was a continuous structure, perhaps a boardwalk.

The light in these scenes suggests the normal changeable weather conditions of Britain but it is also reflective of the time of day and season. The first shot is from an early stage of this wintertime production walk. The other photos are from later on in the walk and the light in the last two reveals the cloud cover overhead and potentially impending rain.

Hemlington Lake stanchions

Hemlington Lake

old stanchion pattern

station abstract

 

Wild Weather Walkers and Reviewing the Week 46

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Reaching the end of my wild and windy walk between Southgate and Three Cliffs on the South Gower coast, like these other two intrepid weather walkers, I was huddled over and protecting my camera against the rain.

I have not created a full StillWalks video of this walk using a mixture of still images and video because I am not a great fan of hand held video and I have not had the time. However, the sequence of photos and the sound clip below can be viewed at the same time and if you are interested in the video I took on my iPhone during the walk, this can also be viewed at the end of this post.

Mixing video and stills is something I will continue to experiment with for StillWalks and if I can find the time I will probably work further with this walk in this way. In the meantime I hope you can enjoy all that I have posted this week and don’t end up too breathless or blown off your seat!

walkers

Wild Wind

If viewing this in an email, to view the sound player you will need to visit the blog – please click the post title to view the full post.

When playing the video I recommend you click the HD and full screen buttons.

Waves of Grey and Lack of Light

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The waves breaking on the South Gower coast near Southgate may not be the huge breakers that can be seen on some coastlines around the world, but I wouldn’t fancy falling in there on a day like this!

In writing this post about my walk between Southgate and Three Cliffs Bay on this wild and windy day, I realised that I had made the third image monotone. The strength of colour in our surroundings comes from reflected light and as there is so little light on a day like this, there is consequently very little obvious colour. In reality of course there is colour and even in the sea, if you focus your attention, there is a range of subtle colours to be seen. The trouble is that in weather like this the inclination to stand still and observe intently is rather weak and the sensation instead, is that the day is dark, the wind is wild, the rain is wet and it is time to get back inside, not linger too long on the edge of the cliffs however many colours there may or may not be.

And so I headed back to the Three Cliffs Coffee Shop at Southgate for another cuppa and to calm the wind that had been blasting my brain for the last hour or two.

waves

waves

waves

Blown Away at the Point of Return

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This was the point the group reached on the Taste of Gower walk at Southgate. Looking over the edge to Three Cliffs Bay, it was disappointing not to go any further but the wind was very wild and this was causing difficulty for some in the group.

Having gone out again on my own afterwards, this was again the point I reached with my cameras and sound kit before deciding to turn back. I may have found the wind exhilarating but the rain which had started to blow in from the sea was less so.

All of the photos taken on this outing are rather grainy and in some cases they were a bit blurred. Considering the weather conditions, even if I had taken my tripod I would not have faired any better – it would simply have been blown away just as I was on one or two occasions!

Below is another short sound clip from my walk. For those of you with an interest in these things, the strength of the wind is evident in this clip recorded with my RODE NTG-3 shotgun mic with a Blimp windshield and dead cat fluffy cover onto a Fostex FR-2LE.

Wild Wind at Southgate 2

Wild Wind at Southgate 2

waves

Walkers at Three Cliffs Bay

Taste of Gower - Southgate-23

Gothic Light

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Exposed as I was to the weather on my walk at Southgate, I again used less exposure in these shots of the cliffs at Three Cliffs Bay on South Gower than was technically correct. However, as on previous occasions, this was deliberate and the result is definitely more realistic in terms of how it felt than if I had used the correct exposure. The result is quite Gothic in atmosphere.

The second shot is monochrome and can be seen on Leanne Cole’s Photography blog post Monochrome Madness MM 2-34.

cliffs

Gower cliffs