Swansea Maritime Quarter

I am continuing to make decent progress on the latest Sweyne's Eye fotozine. This issue will be devoted to some of the sunset images I have captured of Swansea City. Whilst the zine will feature its fair share of silhouetted cityscapes against blazing orange skies, I will also try to share some more unusual sunset shots, such a these two pics, taken in Swansea's maritime quarter.

Sweyne's Eye - Swansea City Sunsets

Sunday, February 13, 2022

Feeling a little brighter health-wise this past weekend, I finally made a good bit of progress on my next publishing project - the latest Sweyne's Eye photography zine, this next edition being titled Swansea City Sunsets. With just 45 days left to meet its deadline, this sudden headway came as a bit of a relief. My sight is now positively focussed on this target date.

The following set of of two images, taken from the upcoming zine, details the cobbled lane at Swansea Marina:

Nom Nom

February 01, 2022 

A bit of much-needed nourishment.

a Sunday morning visitor

January 23, 2022

A key that fits

I finally have a key to my writing bureax :)

 

Good Morning

 Early Sunday Morning 

Writing in the late autumn gloom

Snap, Whiteford

 

Before the Chop

The entrance to Whiteford Burrow, the Gower Peninsula

I took a weekend constitutional down Whiteford Burrows last weekend - my favourite place on  the whole of the magnificent Gower Peninsula. My mission - to photograph the pine woodland there, much of which is now facing the chop!

Chilling amongst the trees, whose death knell has been sounded

The 16,000 step (thanks Fitbit) walk was something of a salutary experience, given that a large number of the trees I wandered amongst were going to be killed, some of them as soon as the following day!

Woodland at Whiteford Point

Chilling, Whiteford

Whiteford offers one of the quietest and more remote walks on the whole of the Gower Peninsula. And its pine trees, which have been a feature of this landscape here for a century, have been a much-loved  aspect of this area. So much so, in fact, that I have already made plans to have my ashes scattered amongst the trees here when my number is finally called. And although there appears to be sound ecological reasons for their decimation, I could not help but feel rather downhearted as I wandered amongst their soon-to-be decimated number.

Owl pellet, Whiteford Woods

Anyway, I will post more photos of the Whiteford's atmospheric woodland for posterity before the felling begins over on my Explore Gower website. {I will update this post with a link to that Explore Gower page when it goes live}....

Cactus in the Autumn Sunshine

A Lovely Bit of Urban Exploration

I do love a bit of unexpected urban exploration, and when I happened upon this fire-damaged cottage at the bottom of yesterday's woodland walk, I just had to step inside to take a look:

An Early Christmas Grotto

Saturday, October 23, 2021

Despite the gloomy weather, Stella and I forced ourselves out of the house today for our weekend exercise. After half hour's drive into the countryside, we parked up at the top of a pine woodland, where, within minutes of leaving the car, we were both overjoyed that we had mustered the needed willpower to leave the house.  

Walking down the woodland path, something bright caught our eyes from a small hollow in a bank below a pine tree. We had to step into a small ditch to get in closer to our find, but we were well and truly rewarded for the slight inconvenience. For, parting its curtain of pine branches, we found ourselves peering into a little magical Christmas grotto, festooned with the most glorious Amanita muscaria mushrooms I have ever seen!

"What have we here then?"

Seeing these bejewelled beauties through the canopy of pine needles reminded me of an old article I wrote on the tradition of decorating Christmas trees with imitation Amanita muscaria mushrooms. Upon our return home, I dug out the old manuscript of this article. Written many moons ago, the thing needs a good, solid polish, but I can announce that my next project will be to publish my short illustrated essay - Santa was a Shaman! 

I do love they way nature walks inspire and get the creative juice flowing :)