Usksider's Photo Blog

All together now...

Baaa......

I think what's left of this building may need rather more than the odd brick...

In case you missed it...

Dith Pran (September 27, 1942 – March 30, 2008) was a photojournalist best known as a refugee and Cambodian Genocide survivor and was the subject of the Academy Award-winning film The Killing Fields.

Dith's style with camera in hand will be missed by the photographic world.

I just thought I'd point out that when it comes to loving your near neighbours, it isn't just the Welsh who are fond of sheep...

Around here we talk about Gloucestershire, where men look shifty and sheep look worried!

Well I ask you... how could any red-blooded man resist?

I missed out on my away day on Wednesday, so when an unexpected opportunity arrived to have some time out yesterday came my way I grabbed it with both hands.

The weather was somewhat mixed, but mostly dry and I decided to take my camera to the eastern Gwent valley.

I dare say many of you will be familiar with the book and film The Englishman Who Went up a Hill but Came down a Mountain. For those who aren't, the story concerns Welsh villagers building up the local mountain to the required 1000 feet so that English surveyors who had previously measured it and called it a hill would record it as a mountain.

Well okay I'm Welsh not English and the hill I climbed yesterday was natural and not built. From the hill top though, I was able to look down on several man-made hills... vast slag heaps in fact that are now being reclaimed by nature and can almost fool the unwary into thinking they are natural.

Originally I had no intention of climbing the hill to the top... I was attracted to a small wood and having wandered through/past it I just kept climbing...

The sheep-path I followed corkscrewed up the side of the hill so the going was hard, but not impossible. I did manage to work up a really good sweat though, so feel as if I've had my exercise for the week!

From the top the views were wonderful, but sadly the light was far from perfect from a photographic point of view.

I exposed this quite specifically for the skies, but you'll get a general idea of the sort of location I was in.

This was mining country and years back there were half a dozen coal pits in this valley. The pits have all gone now and so have most of the old industrial workings. You can still find traces of some of the stonework though.

So anyway, I climbed this hill and worked my body reasonably hard yesterday... my legs are telling my this morning that I climbed something more akin to Everest! Yes I know... just a smidgen of exaggeration there... what you don't get from the above image is how steep sided the valley actually is... perhaps this will help.

Keep fitters... if you fancy a good workout... trust Usky... go follow a sheep-path!