Course Time in the Peak District

We have a spell of doing lots of courses. We planned just one photo day and one darkroom day on our programme for July but have had several private bookings for both photo and darkroom. This is quite interesting as July has previously been a quiet month for courses.

The bonus this year is the weather, lots of sunshine and little rain. It doesn't seem like Derbyshire at all! There's still room on the calendar for more, if you're interested just get in touch for a chat.

Today I walked to Buxton to run the Gallery in the Gardens in Pavilion Gardens. Clear sunny skies and temperature of 24°C, a bit of a breeze on the tops made it a good temp for walking, as I walked the 6 miles here this morning. It will be warmer as I walk home tonight.

Here are some photos from the photo course on Saturday, all taken by Jan using a Nikon D90.

Weekend of Courses

We just had another busy weekend with landscape photography courses on Friday and Saturday and a darkroom printing course on Sunday. The two photo courses were full, with 5 on each 1 day course to keep Jan and I busy. It was dry the whole weekend and the Friday forecast was reasonable for the afternoon - sun from 1pm. Well, we didn't have any sun but the mist gave us a lot of atmosphere.

Friday started, for Peter, John, Abi, Anya and Geoff (on his 13th course with us) at Pilsbury Castle for some misty shots along the valley as well as a very shapely tree and limestone outcrop. Then on to Chelmorton Low for shots of the dry stone walls and the village from the hillside. Unfortunately, the church steeple was cloaked in scaffolding and green sheeting, not that photogenic. We lunched in the Church Inn just below the hill, always a reliable stop for us. After lunch it was a short drive to Monsal Head for views over the viaduct and then down to the waterfalls at the weir. They were in spectacular form with loads of water from the recent rain.

Saturday was almost entirely a ladies day, with Abi back again for her second day, Margaret, Sally and Rachel. Rob made up the group. We first went to Castle Naze for some big views, bit grey though but with a few patches of muted sunshine lifting the shots across the valley. Then down to the Goyt for a 25 foot waterfall and a river and packhorse bridge. Unlike July and September there were no midges here. Lunch was at the Rose and Crown at Allgreave. We are always well looked after here by the new landlord and landlady. The last location was 3 Shire Heads. This needs a walk of 1.5 miles each way but it is worth it. The waterfalls are always great and often spectacular. They didn't disappoint there was lots of water everywhere.

Sunday was a 1-to-1 printing workshop with Alan from Kent who came on a 3 day landscape course in Eskdale in March, now 2 weeks into his retirement from the Met. It was good to see him again. We managed 6 large prints which is about the most we could reasonably expect and all good shots. Also managed to set Alan up with a darkroom as I had arranged for someone to drop off their complete darkroom while we were printing. They just wanted it to go to a good home so no charge. Alan's little car was pretty full as he drove away!

All 3 days were very enjoyable with easy going folk, lots of jokes, wisecracks and interesting stories. Lots of good pictures were taken, mostly digital, and printed too.

New Techical Advice on Web Site

I have written some new pages for my web site in the Technical Notes section. The first is on darkroom technique. If you have been on one of my darkroom printing workshops this will provide a few reminders to help you in your own darkroom. The notes are also written so that they can be of use by anyone trying to improve their darkroom skills.

I have also written pages on hill and mountain photography. This covers a lot of the advice covered on my landscape photography courses. It's always difficult to remember everything covered so I hope this is helpful. The advice is both for film and digital camera users and covers lots of the basics of exposure and composition.

As if that wasn't enough I have also added a page on equipment advice. This may help you in selecting a suitable camera, lenses and other equipment.

Hope you find these new pages of use. In the future I will add a page on using digital cameras that will cover the basic camera settings to use, and master if you can. Unfortunately, digital cameras have lots of features that are not needed for landscape photography and just confuse when first trying to get to grips with your new digital camera. They also have a lot of features that make life easy for you once learned so don't despair.
Dave Butcher