[img[winding down ahead of you...|http://www.moongold.me.uk/uploads/3/2/1/7/3217091/1319728_orig.jpg]]\n\nThe path winds down ahead of you, still yet embraced by brown and fern.\nYou need more care and careful placement for your feet atop a sliding loam of needles and brown tilth.\nYou take a moment to [[look back]], reassured by an escape route should you need it.\n\n[[Onwards]].
[img[more guardians, but slimmer|http://www.moongold.me.uk/uploads/3/2/1/7/3217091/5326782_orig.jpg]]\n\nMore guardians, slimmer, younger, watch with grace.\n[[Continue]].
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIt [[gloams]].\nBrown silt sifts under foot.\nThe trail continues.
[img[you are standing on a grassy trail|http://www.moongold.me.uk/uploads/3/2/1/7/3217091/8118554_orig.jpg]]\nYou are standing at the top of a grassy trail bathed in dark red sunlight emblazoned from an angry ashen sky, dusky with expectation.\n\nGrand tall, [[red fire plants]] stand all around. Lush grasses wave in the distance and the smell of crushed heather and cow-dung fills the air.\nA trail winds enticingly ahead of you into the wild green yonder.\nYou follow the [[trail]].
[img[dapples down through dark dappled dew|http://www.moongold.me.uk/uploads/3/2/1/7/3217091/5881214_orig.jpg]]\n\nSunlight dapples down through dark dappled dew of morning view, you see a shine ahead, less gloom, [[sweet gloom]] and thank you GMH.
[img[monstrous gentle guardian|http://www.moongold.me.uk/uploads/3/2/1/7/3217091/2310506_orig.jpg]]\n\nYou pass unheeded by the monstrous gentle guardian, [[gaunt]] yet fine, though others have not fared so well as evinced by the [[breaks and blood]] of fiercer foe. Still on.
[img[the dark heart of dense harmony|http://www.moongold.me.uk/uploads/3/2/1/7/3217091/4552613_orig.jpg]]\n\nI am in the dark heart of dense harmony but not fearful for some reason. There is a beauty here I cannot deny.\nThe tones are confined to small segments of a gloomy spectrum, but the passion of their packing\nand perfection of their presence is majestic.\nOn my left, careful soil has been moved and heaped by momentous forces into feet of clay that are though, not embedded\nin the Earth, but march downhill away from me with slow silent thunder and a gentle rattle from their fingertips.\n\nTo my [[right|hill of trees]] the [[hill of trees]] comes sliding down upon my listening mind.\nAhead I reach deeper into the [[dark trail|forwards]] of delight.
[img[conclusion of your journey cannot be far ahead|http://www.moongold.me.uk/uploads/3/2/1/7/3217091/9545224_orig.jpg]]\n\nYou can feel the journey reaching to conclude. You may be wrong, wrong turns are always possible.\nMore evidence of cuts, crashing, falling, long gone firewood can be seen before the trail [[opens up]].
[img[it was a slippery little path|http://www.moongold.me.uk/uploads/3/2/1/7/3217091/8759742_orig.jpg]]\n\nThe slithery path slips and slides predictably, but you arrive unscathed at the bottom of it's travels.\nDeep water lies to either side of you, a stream trickles sluggishly out from under your feet, proceeding you towards a choice and towards a gate.\n\nYou move forward for a better look and tread in a cow pat. Ick.\nTo the left a dryish looking route takes you along a curving [[circuitous way]] by a darkening, but not unappealing, tree line, that for some reason holds your interest.\n\nYou could of course move straight forward along the path in the sure knowledge that the [[gate]] will take you somewhere and continue your course.
[img[granite wall, barbed teeth and all|http://www.moongold.me.uk/uploads/3/2/1/7/3217091/3272048_orig.jpg]]\n\nBut no. Not sweet, but hard and poised for flight, or fight, time presents a guardian face, a granite wall, barbed teeth and all\nwith little choice for me but to embrace their thrall, to [[pass]].\nThere is no going [[back|look back]] now.
[img[this was a similar little path|http://www.moongold.me.uk/uploads/3/2/1/7/3217091/814386_orig.jpg]]\n\nLooking the other way you see a similar little path, more windy and more slithery yet somehow more attractive.\nThe slithery attractive path is more open, more enticing. You take the [[slithery path]].
[img[the easy slope beckons ahead, your feet follow|http://www.moongold.me.uk/uploads/3/2/1/7/3217091/5053704_orig.jpg]]\n\nThe walls and fences of the dark are [[behind you|gaunt]] now; little gloom appears ahead to down your mood but [[sunlight beckons|I pass]].
[img[damp ground is brown|http://www.moongold.me.uk/uploads/3/2/1/7/3217091/8557759_orig.jpg]]\n\nDark trees are grey; damp ground is brown; your eyes cannot adjust.\nThe trail opens out slightly and a patch of sky brightens up your life.\nYou are enticed [[forward]].
[img[crest a leaf strewn slope|http://www.moongold.me.uk/uploads/3/2/1/7/3217091/550308_orig.jpg]]\n\nOne last crest, to crest a leaf strewn slope and reach the [[home stretch]], it cannot impress, at least in stature, but it has a simple beauty all to itself.\nNothing more can be asked of nature, woman, or of man.
Light starts being overshadowed by the arboreal edge as you too edge closer to the tree line, striding,\nas you do, along the narrow unappealing path.\n\nThe narrow path however only leads back around, back to the diverging path. You will, after all, have to retrace your steps and take the [[slithery path]] that you liked the look of first time around...\n\n[img[you will have to retrace your steps and take the slithery path|http://www.moongold.me.uk/uploads/3/2/1/7/3217091/3832897_orig.jpg]]
[img[trees, tightly packed|http://www.moongold.me.uk/uploads/3/2/1/7/3217091/9887973_orig.jpg]]\n\nThe tightly marshalled trees appear to close in as I walk and are soon within striking distance.\nI press on [[some more]].
[img[go through the gate|http://www.moongold.me.uk/uploads/3/2/1/7/3217091/1343375_orig.jpg]]\n\nYou reach the gate and peer over.\nAn even narrower path beckons. You decide to take the [[narrow path]].
[img[wet coldness cannot dampen your enthusiasm|http://www.moongold.me.uk/uploads/3/2/1/7/3217091/4556304_orig.jpg]]\n\nWet coldness cannot dampen your enthusiasm as you search for photographs under the leaden dour clammy sky.\nIt is silent all around. A movement catches your eye, somewhere in the undergrowth a rabbit is nibbling.\nSwishing your feet, fall with footfall, and you move forward, further into the [[gloaming]].
All photographs taken on a mornings walk.\nCanon 5D 50mm EF 1.8\nEdited for gloomy effect in Aperture.
[img[a narrow path beckons|http://www.moongold.me.uk/uploads/3/2/1/7/3217091/3254727_orig.jpg]]\n\nThe narrow path reaches ahead confidently. You do the same.\nThe silence is still and all embracing as if life had moved away elsewhere. Fire plants companion you. Ferns stroke your boots in sympathetic poses, the posies.\nYou see, distantly, the boles of tall trees, different somehow to the rest, a taste of winter in amongst the warmth of summer. You [[press on]].
The circuitous way is indeed dryer. Your boots are grateful for that.\n\nLight begins being overshadowed by the arboreal edge as you too edge closer.\nThe view ahead looks somehow familiar.\n\n[img[not again; you will have to retrace your steps|http://www.moongold.me.uk/uploads/3/2/1/7/3217091/3832897_orig.jpg]]\n\nBlast, you have reached back on yourself and discovered naught but that mischievous interest bringing unexpected rewards and\nnew knowledge through serendipity. You have returned to the [[diverging paths|forward]].
[img[two paths diverge ahead|http://www.moongold.me.uk/uploads/3/2/1/7/3217091/3832897_orig.jpg]]\n\nAhead, you see two paths diverging across an open plain of denuded stumps and marshy mire.\nTo the left, a [[narrow little path]] leads into a dark aspect which goes you know not where, and that does not appeal.\n\nYou decide not to take that route.\nYou look the [[other way]].
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe trail leads [[on and on]] and on into the warm wet embrace of legions cold leaves. You go further along...
[img[evidence, hurry by|http://www.moongold.me.uk/uploads/3/2/1/7/3217091/902066_orig.jpg]]\n\nEvidence of life. [[Skirt]] quickly by.
Black Rock Trail\n\nphotographs\npresented as\nan interactive story.\n\n
[img[refreshing arrival|http://www.moongold.me.uk/uploads/3/2/1/7/3217091/4950363_orig.jpg]]\n\nHome stretch. You can taste that feeling of content arrival.\nNo more [[trail|grassy trail]] unless you choose.\nA different trail tomorrow will suffice.\n\nThank you for your indulgence and your time. I hope that presenting my pictures in this way worked well for you and was enjoyed.\n\nMore of my pictures can be seen on my [[web site|http://www.moongold.me.uk/photography1.html]] and previous [[video walks|http://www.moongold.me.uk/5/post/2012/01/landscape-photography-thought-process-and-inspiration-over-an-evenings-walk.html]] may explain the progression of ideas presented here.\n\n[[Twine|http://www.gimcrackd.com/etc/src/]] was used to make this piece.
[img[choices, choices|http://www.moongold.me.uk/uploads/3/2/1/7/3217091/9505409_orig.jpg]]\n\n[[Left|some more]]\n[[Right|hill of trees]]\n[[Onwards|forwards]].
[img[the redness of the fire plants|http://www.moongold.me.uk/uploads/3/2/1/7/3217091/1387929_orig.jpg]]\n\nThe redness of the fire plants is reflected in your eyes as is the sky light.\nYou find yor way back to the [[grassy trail]] by turning around.
[img[pride and poise|http://www.moongold.me.uk/uploads/3/2/1/7/3217091/8983028_orig.jpg]]\n\nYou cannot help but think the contrast of her wrinkled flesh with that of stone and steel is one of pride and poise, soft hearted perfection, perfection not all [[warriors|breaks and blood]] possess. [[Onwards|downhill]].
[img[bark and blood|http://www.moongold.me.uk/uploads/3/2/1/7/3217091/8338014_orig.jpg]]\n\n[[Onwards|downhill]].
[img[you are still waiting on a grassy trail|http://www.moongold.me.uk/uploads/3/2/1/7/3217091/8118554_orig.jpg]]\n\nYou are still standing at the top of a grassy trail bathed in dark maroon sunlight from an amazing ashen sky, dusky with expectation.\n\nElegant tall [[red fire plants]] stand all around. Lush grasses wave in the distance and the smell of crushed heather and cow dung fills the air.\nA trail winds enticingly ahead of you into the wild green yonder.\nYou follow the [[trail]].
Gareth Jordan, photographer.\n6 August 2013
[img[dark dense harmony|http://www.moongold.me.uk/uploads/3/2/1/7/3217091/2716890_orig.jpg]]\n\nTo your [[left|some more]] all is dark dense harmony, but you choose to proceed [[forwards]] once again.
[img[arms stretching languorously|http://www.moongold.me.uk/uploads/3/2/1/7/3217091/3591174_orig.jpg]]\n\nFine reaching arms of trees stretch languorous along the wind above my head. You [[walk on]].