Tag: carmarthenshire

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Uncategorized

mountain notes

Working on my writing today, I had a moment of joy after transcribing & then randomising my mountain record journal, and seeing what came from that.

Some strange (very strange) and heart-catching beauty has been revealed, and I feel like I can do something wonderful with bits of it, (ie. combining parts of the text with my drawings or prints, as part of my book of the mountain).

Here are three examples:

   Golden light, ravens, later 
   Surpassing beautiful. Sky 
   
   in flocks, closing the day low 
   
   Such cold. Such 
   water, black peat opened 
   
   All quiet and softened 
   on its shoulders. Colours 
   high blue clear.

Or

   Sea breeze. 
   East. Northwind cold like a knife 
   Stillness. A raven lifting up 
   moon through haze. Quiet and 
     
   on the other side. 
   but it must be the clouds 
   Darkening. 
   lit as we leave.

Or

   glooming. 
   Storm coming tonight. 
     
   yellow to blue above. 
     
   south of west, north of 
   West. All dampness. Colours 
   out the voices of the others. 
   
   and gorse, greens and reds bruised 
   glow up as the light dims. 
   Paying respect to this, the 
   beauty. What does it mean? 
     
   High cloud, brittle ice, 
   Sun setting yellow 
     
   in us.
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sounds video

a video fragment

A short video to share today.

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sounds

river sounds, gwendraeth fawr

Here is a short piece of sound clip from the Gwendraeth River from near to my house – very restful, very watery, as we have had nothing but rain for the last three weeks, unless you also count the snow …

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light photography

inside low cloud, dusk

Rain and low cloud this evening on the mountain – good conditions for observing (and trying to photograph) the moment when things become indeterminate and disappear. Inside cloud, up high near the top, wind blowing and shoving, light rain now on now off, water pooling all around my feet, and feeling myself to be standing at the centre of a circle of invisibility.

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drawing photography

experiments, photos

I’ve made a few experiments in finding out what happens when photographic paper and photographic prints are painted with ink

( the answer? it depends on the ink, and to the extent that I had expectations, its not what I expected …)

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light photography

unscientific observatory

I’ve brought my mountain notebook in from the pocket of the car door, trying to make sense of the evening visits I’ve been making, maybe trying to find a pattern. I’m going to sort through, put the entries next to the photos and videos that I’ve made, see if anything starts to emerge.

On Wednesday evening I videoed a grimy sunset. It lasted longer than I expected. I balanced my phone on top of a stone at the centre of the bronze age burial circle close to the trig point, and which seemed to face into the sunset. All around me was sky and air and Westerly wind, too much of it that evening. I cowered behind the stone and forced myself to watch the sun slip right down to nothing, and meanwhile the wind numbed my exposed fingers to the bones.

I wrote quite a bit in my notebook back in the car, including that I saw

“clouds pillowing and piled up high, salmon and gold, south leaning. Distances disappearing out to smeary grey. Dirty sun set over the sea, slipping into fog.”

This evening it was warmer, soft rain came after the sunset. I wrote in my notebook

“The sea a shell bright line, pink and soft. Light filling the hollows of the land… Afterwards a soft rain, not cold. Two ravens on the wires.”

I went to the same stone circle, this time with a compass app installed on my phone (it didn’t seem very convincing). I found that the central stone, and also a large single standing stone further down are both aligned roughly the same, one ‘facing’ and one ‘pointing’ towards Caldey Island, just South of West.

(Or the first stone could be facing North of East, but the second stone is far below the brow of the hill, and in a shallow West-facing valley; so if its facing anywhere, it can only be to the South West).

I’d like to guess that the two stones are aligned the same, and for a reason, possibly to point to Caldey, or maybe to align with the direction of the sunset at the winter solstice, which I think might be that way. But I’ll have to get a better compass and consult with an astronomer, or otherwise wait at least eleven months to check, since I did not do it this year. I can at least say that there was no sunset this year at the solstice, only grey misty cloud and according to my mountain notebook:

“grey-white noise, indistinctness. All quiet and softened in, retreating.”

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light photography

more small framing experiments

a few more small experiments this evening
gusty wind, light rain and a strange glow over the sea

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art light

experiments

Mynydd Llangyndeyrn, 4 to 4.30pm

last of the sun, bone cold, a few flakes of snow falling

making a few small experiments in framing

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light

mynydd llangyndeyrn

This evening much colder.

Up onto Mynydd Llangyndeyrn, following the road to the cattle grids, then crossing the common and climbing up to the right on to the ridge above the standing stone. Walking round to the east.

A hawthorn tree tangled in sky, on the ground low brambles looping and scratching across jeans and boots. Birds passing singly and in small flocks, low, urgent.

Distance disappeared, cloud gradually climbing the dome of the sky from north and west, dim and ominous, bruised and yellow purple, thick with sleety rain. Half a roof covering the high house of the hill. Three quarters now, the lid sliding grey and purple across the moon. Light rain gently falling as we turn back.

Before leaving, letting the silence settle on me, to carry through the evening, back to my other home.

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sounds Uncategorized

christmas sounds

A short audio recording from the beach at Amroth, Christmas day.

Tide coming up to meet the tiny stones, salt air in the nose, sea soft like a mirror, sun coming through the clouds low and gold, woman paddling an inflatable surf board with her greyhound.

Us sitting on a wall, drinking tea from separate flasks and eating mince pies from a box, talking about covid, about brothers and sisters and christmas, enjoying the order of things just as they were.