Cotswold Photography

It was a good day in the Cotswolds for photographs today.

We were lucky and our old friends Carol and Al looked after us, with Al doing the driving.

The days photography started on Painswick Beacon with good views to the Forest of Dean but poor views to Gloucester and the Malverns. From here we went down into the village of Painswick to take the Yew trees in the churchyard. Had sunshine and heavy rain showers but managed a few shots down the rows of trees in the graveyard.

Then to the pretty little village of Minchinhampton and a few shots in the centre and around the church.

We had lunch in the busy village of Tetbury, in the Snooty Fox (good beer), but no pictures;j there were too many cars and people.

From Tetbury it was on to Malmesbury and some photos around the old streets and the very impressive Abbey, part of which was in ruins.

The next stop was Castle Combe. I can't remember ever visiting this pretty village and took shots down and up the main narrow street. I also wanted views back to the village from the river. The river bank with the best view was private so I jumped down into the river bed and waded along in the shallow water until I could see the shot I wanted. Thankfully I was wearing my walking boots, not the usual trainers, and managed to keep my feet dry. Nice clouds!

Then it was back to Painswick for better light on the Yew trees and church. I hadn't been able to take any shots of the church earlier because of the grey sky and poor light. Found a pyramid memorial in the graveyard to put in the shot with the spire. Haven't sold many graveyard shots so just an interesting shot to take!

The days photography ended back on Painswick Beacon. The clouds were spectacular so I switched from the dark yellow filter to an orange one to make the sky more dramatic. The only other filter I used today was a yellow-green one while taking the yew trees.

Quite a day. A total of 8 rolls of film (10 shots to a roll). The first Cotswold images for my picture library.

Busy Day and Cotswolds Weekend

Jolly busy today. Started with scanning a few local negs and editing for printing, then across to my dentist just under an hour away in Cheshire (a dentist is for life not just for Christmas)!

Followed this by calling in at the Ilford Lab Direct facility at the Harman Technology factory a couple of miles from dentist. This is where all of the Ilford black and white films and papers are made.

I had 8 new image files to drop off for printing onto silver gelatine paper and needed some others reprinting. Neil the manager offered to try and print Monday as I'm a little behind at the moment.

From Mobberley it was home to edit a new magazine advert needed for copy deadline of Monday.

Then I was picked up and driven to a committee meeting of the High Peak Artists Association who run the Gallery in the Gardens in Buxton where my work is sold. I'm the secretary of the committee.

This went on a bit longer than expected but fortunately Jan had dinner completely under control, as usual.

Thank goodness we have a relaxing weekend planned with friends in Upton St Leonards near Gloucester. Monday night I'm giving another lecture to Cotswold Monochrome who happen to hold their meetings within 200 yards of where our friends live.

Hope the weather is good. I still have almost no pictures of the Cotswolds. It should be great for black and white but you need the right light.

Surtex Image Licensing Show Over for Another Year

This was our third time that we had our own stand at Surtex. It is a show for licensing images for printing onto surfaces and textiles.


Since it was in Manhattan in New York and is very specifically for image licensing there was no need for picture frames and stand furniture like print browsers. Jan did the show on her own to save on costs and most of the prints on display were unmounted to save on weight and bulk such that everything would fit in a large suitcase and still meet airline weight limits. We didn't ship anything over before the show.

We had a mixture of International Graphics Walmsley GmbH posters (4 big ones at 1 metre x 0.5 metres, all of New York), 5 hand prints (printed by me, of course) and over 30 Silver Prints (printed by Ilford Lab Direct from scans of my negatives). The Silver Prints were mostly 30 x 24 cm but 2 of them were 70 x 70 cm for a bit of impact (one of Chicago in winter and a snowy scene from Colorado).

The picture here gives you an idea of what was on display.


Lots of interest for greetings cards, calendars and stationery products, as well as for wall art which is pretty much already tied up with our deal with IGW. Now the real work starts, chasing up lots of leads.

Wet Walk to Buxton Gallery in the Gardens

Another day in Buxton Pavilion Gardens Gallery. Walked here this morning in the wind and rain. It''s hardly stopped raining all day. Hope it will be dry on the return.

Visiting friends near Gloucester at weekend, I am giving a talk to Cotswold Monochrome Group on Monday and taking opportunity to catch up with old friends as well as add to my picture library for Gloucester and the Cotswolds.

Copenhagen and Windmills at Kinderdijk

Here are some more new images. I scanned these a few months ago but didn't have time to edit them. On the web there are more.

Near Rotterdam there is a World Heritage Site with 19 windmills in about 1 mile, all well maintained and many inhabited. It is called Kinderdijk. One is a working mill that the public can go around. They were built to drain the land not to mill corn.

Kinderdijk Windmill Reflections

Kinderdijk Windmill in Action

I took quite a few photographs in Copenhagen when we visited there in 2009. but have so far managed just 2 scans. Here is one of them, the old Danish Stock Exchange, sometimes called the Candy Twist Palace after the Dragon Tail Tower in the picture.

Copenhagen Old Stock Exchange

Telluride Ski Images

The latest batch of images has gone live. This time it includes a couple of photos from the Telluride ski area in Colorado. The skies were amazing on one of the 2 days we skied there. I just used a dark yellow filter to darken the skies which helps to compensate for the natural blue sensitivity of black and white film. I used a reasonably slow shutter speed for the snowboarders, 1/30 sec I think, but it could have been 1/60 sec, it wouldn't have been any slower and faster than 1/60 would have frozen the action.

View from Revelation Bowl above Wasatch Trail, Telluride

Snowboarders above Telluride Mountain Village

Sand Dunes and Tree Tops in Colorado

New photos of the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Aspen tree tops have been added to the web site. Last year we arrived at the sand dunes just in time to be caught in a blizzard as we walked over to where I wanted to take my photos from. This year it was bitterly cold, even the sand was frozen so it was a bit easier to walk on, but it was sunshine and good clouds and the views were spectacular. I took several films but have so far only scanned and edited 2  photos.

Great Sand Dunes NP in winter with Mount Herard in the background

Patterns in the sand

We also drove over the McClure Pass while travelling from Telluride to Aspen. The Aspen trees at the pass were great for pictures and I mainly took up into the canopy. It was a bit tricky moving around as the snow was soft and deep and I hadn't bothered to put my snowshoes on, oops! The dark sky was from being high (2671 metres, 8763 feet) and a dark yellow or orange filter on my Mamiya 7 43mm lens. A red filter was completely unnecessary.

Aspens at McClure Pass, Colorado

Natures Snow Sculptures at Wolf Creek

Yes, even more new images on my main web site. This time some shots of the fantastic snow shapes created by the weather at the Wolf Creek ski area in southern Colorado. The trees were amazing! Last year we visited Wolf Creek and skied it in a snow storm that lasted most of the day
but this year it was spectacular. Deep snow everywhere and wall-to-wall blue sky and a bit of high cloud here and there.

Tree at Wolf Creek covered in Snow and Ice

Wolf Creek View Through the Trees

Deep Snow Drift and Trees at Wolf Creek

New Images of London

There are a few new images of London on my web site in the Recently Added (for a month) and Cities sections. I have lots more to add but no time to scan and edit at the moment so it will be a while before I add the rest that I took in March. Here are some examples.

St Paul's Cathedral from the Millenium Bridge

The Swiss Re (Gherkin) Building at Night

Leadenhall Market at Night

St Paul's Cathedral, the Thames and the Millenium Bridge

New York in Spring

Jan flew out from Manchester airport today heading for New York. We are exhibiting at the Surtex 3 day image licensing trade show from Sunday at the Jacob Javits Centre in Manhattan. Jan is running the stand alone, she is much better considering new opportunities than me! It's our 3rd time at the show after a gap of 3 years so keeping fingers crossed it works for us.

Last night was good fun, old friends Rik and Glen from Norfolk dropped by unexpectedly in their camper van and dragged us down the pub. Fortunately, we had finished all of our preparation for Surtex except packing the cases. We went to the Old Hall Inn in Whitehough, a jolly nice pub; good beer and good food. Just what we needed to relax and a good catch up of what's gone on over the last year or so since we last saw each other.

A touch wet today here in the Peaks - very heavy rain. I think the dry spell may have ended!

Landscapes, Waterfalls, Flowers, Birds and Curry

The second day of the course and the locations were spectacular. We started in the village of Conistone and walked up to the Dib through a narrow gorge. Good views as the clouds broke up to give blue skies and fantastic clouds. The limestone pavement at the top was particularly good. Who needs Malham!

From here we headed to the small Dales hamlet of Cray and the pub for lunch. The Timothy Taylor Golden was in fine form, as was my ham baguette.

After lunch it was straight over the pass and down to West Burton for the shapely falls. With the recent rain they were quite impressive and we were able to take photographs from 3 sides.

Time was marching on so we headed back to Grassington and ended the day, and the course, with Linton Falls. These looked really low and the best shots were probably just upstream of the main falls. Nice light though.

It just remained to return to Grassington centre so that we could load up cars and all travel home.

Over the 2 days we had a lot of good light and sunshine for big views. Lots of different areas of limestone pavement, both with and without trees. The rivers were low and waterfalls had a lot less water than I have seen on trips here in recent years but still gave interesting shots. The big views from the top of the limestone escarpment were as good as they get on Sunday morning.

We also saw and heard lots of different birds, including 2 sightings of a Kingfisher. It was also a good time for moorland flowers and most in the group had a go at Macro Photography of Orchids, Primrose, Violas, Bluebells and Wild Garlic, for example.

I took a few more shots for the web courses pages to show the exact locations that we use. We will hopefully have some images taken on the course too so that you can see how people interpreted the locations.

We also had a good time. David and Andrew had met on our Lakes course in March and picked up where they left off (slightly different jokes!). The other David quickly joined in with the banter and the whole weekend was very enjoyable.

The curry in Whaley Bridge was a good end to the trip but the beer (Indian lager) was very forgetable.

Photos and ice cream

First day of our Yorkshire Dales course today. All went well. Overcast but dry to start, rain during middle of day and suuny afternoon. We managed 3 locations with several areas of limestone pavement (with and without trees) above Grassington this morning.

Lunch was taken at the Black Horse in Grassington before heading out to Loup Scar a few miles away. Good falls here but we had to venture into the middle of the gorge to reach the best viewpoints.

Our last stop was the Strid. This was a walk of a bit over a mile each way and gave us photos of old stone bridges, waterfalls, bluebells and Dales views along the river. Oh and there was a brief stop at the ice cream van by the first bridge.

Overall, a good day. I even took 20 shots through the day; extra images for my introduction talk.

Looking forward to tomorrow. The forecast is for sunshine and showers which could be perfect as long as the showers don't last too long.

Yorkshire Dales Photo Course

We are in Grassington in the Yorkshire Dales ready to run course at the weekend. With weeks of dry weather needed to check out rivers and waterfalls, as well as where to park the car at each location.

It rained this evening so looks like weather has broken.

They have given us a room with a 4-poster bed, at the Black Horse. Perhaps they think we are on our honeymoon. Just 35 years late!

Gallery, Course and Walks

It's a lovely day in the Peak District today. I'm in the Gallery in the Gardens in Buxton Pavilion Gardens until 5pm. Looking forward to my 6 mile walk home, it was clear as a bell, but cold, walking here this morning.

Off to Grassington in the Yorkshire Dales tomorrow, checking out locations and parking for the 2 day photo course that starts at the weekend.