Old Hall inn Whitehough Beer Festival

I finished mounting and framing the last 2 pictures of 7 for the Ilford stand at Focus on Imaging, starting next weekend at the NEC.

Time to go for a walk!

As luck would have it I happened to know there was a beer festival at the Old Hall Inn Whitehough, just the other side of the hill. We headed off and made it there at 3.15pm.

We actually started in the Old Paper Mill, a sort of extension to the Old Hall Inn. I started with Brampton Impy Dark, not a memorable pint, a bit bland.

Next over to the Old Hall Inn and Summer Wine Barista stout. This was a good one, shame it was only a half, well I do have to pace myself!

Then followed Saltaire Triple Chocoholic, Thornbridge McConnels Vanilla stout, Titanic Chocolate and Vanilla stout, Hook Norton Hooky Dark and Hopback Entire stout.

Now the difficult bit, walking back over Eccles Pike. Despite it being dark we made it home without mishap. Practice makes perfect!

Buxton Gallery in the Gardens

I'm in the Gallery in the Gardens in Buxton Pavilion Gardens today. This is the gallery for High Peak Artists, there are 39 of us exhibiting here.

It was a wet and windy 6 mile walk to get here, but at least it was daylight all the way. It will be dark for quite a bit of the walk home.

Come in for a chat if you're passing, I'm here until 5pm.

I sent Andy, my web man, 12 new photos of Glasgow yesterday. Hopefully they will be available to view in the next day or so. I will drop some in here too when I have a moment.

New USA negatives

The photographs that I took in the USA in late December and January are now captioned. That means I can now print the contact sheets to see what I have and select those negatives to scan and add to the web.

Locations include Washington DC, Colorado including Steamboat Springs from the ski runs and aerial shots from a light aircraft. The flight was courtesy of Jack, a very kind friend of a friend, who has his own plane.

There are also photos of the Grand Tetons and the local ski area to them, Jackson Hole.

We also skied several areas in Utah, including Park City, Deer Valley, Alta and Canyons.

Will try to start scanning and editing for the web in the next week or so.

Now, after a day in the Gallery in Buxton, I am walking 6 miles home over the hills, mostly in the dark. Home by 7pm.

A Walk in the Clouds

As planned we walked the hills today. Unfortunately, we spent the entire 4 hours walking in the clouds, no bright spells at all.

Just up the road Combs Reservoir had interesting snow patterns on the surface. Light was a bit ordinary but I did take it on the mobile on return as mist had thickened to add more atmosphere.

Snow was between 4 and 15 inches deep, mostly 4. Mist thickened through the day.

We went round the reservoir towards Combs then up Ladder Hill and across to the Goyt Valley before heading home.

Took a couple of reminder shots on the mobile but nothing on the proper camera.

Buxton Gallery in the Gardens - New Display

I forgot to say that on Friday I changed my display in Buxton Gallery in the Gardens, in Pavilion Gardens.

Just as well, one on the big framed prints was sold Saturday morning and I didn't get in to replace it until this afternoon.

All of the original prints in the front browser have been changed too and they are all half-price. The small prints were re-stocked too.

Lots to look at and browse through, well over 200 prints in fact.

Winter Walk in the Peak District

Saturday 28th January was a great day in the English Peak District. Blue sky, white fluffy clouds, snow on the tops.

We were out a bit late, after 3pm, but the low sun made for great views. I only had my mobile phone camera so just a quick snap as a reminder.

The view is from Ladder Hill looking towards snow covered Kinderscout, the highest point in Derbyshire at 636m. The foreground wasn't very interesting so I cropped it to panoramic format.

Home Sweet Home

We returned home from our USA trip on Saturday. The United flight from Denver to Washington was fine but the Virgin flight from Washington DC to London Heathrow was cancelled. We only found out a few hours before we were due to go to the airport; we had checked-in several hours earlier. No reason given. At the airport we were at the front of the queue that developed and Virgin said all the right things but it took so long to get sorted.

Unfortunately, BA and Virgin didn't seem to understand what paperwork was needed to make the change so 2 hours later we were still waiting for our bookings to be transferred. Eventually, most of the Virgin passengers were transferred to equivalent BA flights.

My back was aching by the time we left the plane in London. BA Business class seats are not flat like the Virgin ones, which is the main reason why we fly Virgin on long flights.

A quick diversion to visit Jan's parents and pick up our things left there at Christmas, then Jan drove us home by mid-afternoon Saturday. My back was really aching so I went to bed to rest it for a few hours. It was nice to be home.

It's 4 days later and I'm still trying to get over the jet-lag. Feeling tired at the wrong time of day and not sleeping at night. Walking to Buxton for a day in Gallery in the Gardens yesterday seemed to help tire me out so that I slept better. Over 3 of the 4 hours walking the 12 miles over the hills were in the dark in continuous heavy rain, much of it in low cloud too. Not the best day for walking but a good day to test the new head torch that I bought in REI Boulder!

It's a Black Diamond Spot head torch with a 90 lumens main beam.  The bright beam lit the ground even in fog, rain and in the dark so that was a success. It also has a red beam which I thought would be useful for me finding things and changing film when doing night photography. Having to find a street light or similar to let me see what I'm doing can be a bit limiting and I thought a red beam would be better than bright white as far as retaining night vision, rather than the usual spots in front of the eyes after using white light.

Today I'm continuing to catch up with orders received while we were away.

Last Day in Boulder

Our travels are coming to an end. This is our last full day with our friends Rob and Annie in Boulder in Colorado. Tomorrow morning we leave for Denver Airport and return to Washington DC and Friday we fly back to the UK.

Last night was good as we met our other good friends from Boulder, Paul, Ed and Johanne for dinner at one of the local brew pubs, the Walnut Brewery. Didn't like the porter, too sweet and hoppy so called in at the Mountain Sun brew pub on our way home with Rob. The Java Porter nitro version was fantastic so I had a second just to make sure.

Earlier yesterday we did a snowshoe hike to Red Rocks Lake in temperatures around -15°C and 30mph winds. It was chilly! I took some pictures from the frozen surface of the lake but not the one I wanted as the surrounding mountains were in cloud.

We decided that we needed warming up so headed for the local brewery in Nederland on our way back to Boulder. Jolly nice Redemption Stout.

We snowshoed the day before too, to Lost Lake near Nederland. It snowed the whole time. It was a good walk though. See image of me, Jan and Rob below.

Since the last blog post we have skied Canyons near Park City. This had the worst snow of all the areas but I took a good shot of a single set of ski tracks in amongst Aspen trees and shadows. Hope it prints as well as I expect it to.

The 6th and last ski day was in Steamboat Springs last Saturday. The snow was poor here too but it was interesting to ski as we had heard so much about it. In the evening we met and had dinner with Carol and Jack, friends of Rob and Annie. They moved there many years ago. It was very enjoyable and turned out both were pilots and had their own planes. I was stunned when Jack then offered to take us up in their plane the next day! It would have been churlish to refuse such a generous offer so with much excitement we met up the next day! It was a blue sky day and cold, perfect visibility too.

Jack was meticulous in his pre-flight checks of his Cessna then it was up and away above the local mountains.

I didn't want to take photos through the windows so worked out that sitting up front with the side window open was the best way to take my shots. The window only opened to about 45° so I could only take photos looking down between the bottom of the window, the wing strut and the landing wheel below the window.

No expansive views or skies, just pattern pictures of the Mount Zirkel area as well as Steamboat Springs ski slopes, etc. Fingers crossed they come out as it was a bit bumpy at times and I had to use shutter speeds of 1/125 and 1/250.

The flight was exciting for another reason though; Jack let me take the controls and 'fly' the plane for a few minutes. Jan, sitting behind me, didn't seem to share my excitement during this time and was relieved when Jack took over again!

I took 3 rolls of Ilford FP4, 30 photos during the hour long flight, which flew by!

It has been great spending so much time with Rob and Annie but I am actually looking forward to getting home as we have been away almost 4 weeks.

I am also impatient to see what new pictures I have in the 61 rolls of FP4 so that I can think about which ones to add to the web site.

Deer Valley and Alta, Utah Skiing

Having unseasonably warm weather here in USA at moment. No real snowfall since we arrived. Still managing to ski though. Lots of blue sky for photos. Mainly using dark yellow filter with Ilford FP4 as lots of dark green conifers around, otherwise I would be using orange more.

Yesterday was Deer Valley, today was Alta, both in Utah near Salt Lake City. Both have bans on snowboarding which was bliss.

With little fresh snow for over a week they are struggling to keep runs open. Still enough to go at though but very strange seeing so much brown hillside with no snow on it.

Tomorrow we ski Canyons, just outside Park City. Saturday we ski Steamboat in Colorado.

Had our 3rd night at the Redrock Brewery tonight. It's just over a half-mile from our hotel and has reasonable beer and food.

Park City Utah Skiing

Today, Monday 9th January was a ski day at Utah's Park City ski area. Normally this is one of the most reliable ski areas for snow but right now it is struggling. A lot of the trails were closed, not just because the odd rock was showing but because the whole hillside was bare of snow!

Took a few photos, subtle tones between Aspens and snowy ski trails showed up well from above. Saw a sign saying Kodak photo point but with a closed sign on it. A bit ironic as Kodak are in serious financial problems which may close the company, permanently !

We stayed with Butch and Melissa, relatives of Annie and Rob, our friends from Boulder who were accompanying us on this trip, as well as putting up with us at their home. We were very well looked after at their ranch home on the Wyoming / Utah border.

Managed to find a hotel just north of Park City that is easy walking distance from a brewery. The Oatmeal Stout was okay but a bit bland.

Tomorrow we ski Deer Valley. They have twice the depth of snow compared to Park City. Fingers crossed it's good!