Victoria Upgraded with Photos

Yesterday we travelled from Vancouver to Victoria on Vancouver Island. The ferry took just over 1.5h and it was sunny but cool for the crossing. Quite a bit of traffic slowed us reaching Victoria. We reached our hotel right on the harbour at 4pm.

Virgin Holidays booked most of the trip and we find ourselves in the Fairmont Empress Hotel. A very large traditional hotel. On checking in they offered a free upgrade to a room with a view over the harbour, oh and a round bed!

We could definitely get used to this! Unfortunately, when we return it will be back to 'good old Travelodge'.

Ferry to Victoria

Fairmont Empress Hotel

While we were checking in I happened to mention that the trip was planned around Jan's birthday in June. About an hour after getting to our room there was a knock at the door. Free bottle of fizz, fresh strawberries and a birthday card for Jan!

We could definitely get used to this!

A couple of glasses later, we went out taking photos around the harbour, day and night. At times like this I wish my camera had an Auto setting. For some reason I forgot to take blog photos but the reflections in the water were great.

Vancouver Photography

Jan and I are on a photo trip to Vancouver and the Canadian Rockies. We started with a couple of nights in San Francisco before coming to Vancouver yesterday. We have been to San Fran a few times so just a couple of rolls of new shots.

Today was our first and only full day here. Fortunately it was dry with some sunny spells so lots of photos, 8 rolls in fact, all Ilford FP4 120 film giving me 10 shots to a roll.

Did some night shots around False Creek tonight with lots of reflections on the water. Finished about 11pm having started just after 9am this morning. That's quite a long day for me but did manage to find a couple of decent brew pubs to break the day up, Steamworks and Granville Island.

Tomorrow we move on to Victoria on Vancouver Island.

DB photographing Canada Place Vancouver

Vancouver World Science Centre

Living Crafts at Hatfield House 2015

We are exhibiting at Living Crafts at Hatfield House until Sunday 10th May. You can find us in Marquee G.

Lots of photographs. Lots of show offers. New books Snow Light and Land Light. Jan's colour photos as well, including new local ones.

Alpine Pass Route Day 2. Weisstannen to Elm.

We had an early breakfast at 7am as it was going to be a long tough day today.

Shortly after 8am we started walking up the valley along the river. So many waterfalls! Lots of cows with very loud cow bells for company. Easy walking for a few miles then a steep climb to the pass.

View east from below Foo Pass

We reached the pass by 1.15pm. This was the main event of the day at 2223m and clear views in all directions. Took a few photos here on my Mamiya 7 camera as well as a few on my mobile phone so that I had some images for this blog post.

Foo Pass view north

Jolly steep descent from the pass and we quickly came to the Raminer farm which seemed to be selling refreshments, including beer. After a short stop for a pint we continued down to Elm,  which took a further 2 hours.

Elm is a pretty but quiet village and we stayed in the Elmer hotel and were very well looked after all night.

Tomorrow we walk to Linthal.

Foo Pass

Alpine Pass Route Day 8. Meiringen to Grindelwald

Thursday 12th was our 8th and last day walking the Alpine Pass Route. This completes this half of the route, as well as the entire walk from Sargans to Montreaux as we walked from Grindelwald to Montreaux in 2006.

We have actually been following the signs for the Via Alpina 1 this time which follows most of the same route.

The day started wet in Meiringen as we made our way up past the Reichenbach Falls, the place where Sherlock Holmes met his fate. I took several photos on my Samsung S3 phone which Google automatically converted into a video.

It was a steady climb up through the trees and meadows to Schwarzwaldalp where we stopped for a short lunch break. The rain started again before reaching the Grosse Scheidegg for another break. It was just a stroll from here for a couple of hours to our finish at the Alte Post Hotel in Grindelwald. The black and white photo is of the Wetterhorn.

Overall, we took 16 days to walk about 220 miles from Sargans to Montreux, starting in 2006 and finishing in 2013: 2 blocks of 8 days.

Alpine Pass Route Day 6. Attinghausen to Engelberg

Another long day on our 8 day walk from Sargans to Grindelwald along the Alpine Pass Route.

We had an early breakfast son that we could catch the small gondola lift from Attinghausen to Brusti before the rush.

We were walking by 8.30am and the rain was clearing with the sun trying to break through.

Nice little ridge as we climbed higher to the saddle of Angistock. Then we lost quite a bit of height as we avoided a slope prone to rockfall. Then up to the Surenen Pass at 2291m by late morning. It was cold but still dry.

We dropped down to a ski hut (about the size of a garden shed) to have lunch inside. Shortly after leaving the rain returned and continued for the rest of the day. No views or photos after this.

Stopped at hut for hot soup and a break from the rain. Then down for another hour or so to another hut for a beer. Really heavy rain for the rest of the descent. We arrived at our hotel at 5.30pm looking like drowned rats!

Tomorrow we walk to Meiringen with better weather forecast. Fingers crossed.

Peak District Summer and Winter in 2 Days!

The weather has been a bit mixed over the last few days. Warm sunny days early last week. Cold sunny days at the end of the week. Showers and cool Saturday while we were running a photo course. Sunny and cool Sunday and Monday, Sunday I was running a darkroom printing workshop. Today was cold with frequent snow showers as I walked to Buxton to run the Gallery in the Gardens, back to winter but it's almost May!

Here are a few photos from my phone so you can see what it's like.

Rushup Edge from Eccles Pike Monday 27th April

Old Roman Road to Buxton Tuesday 28th April

Combs Moss and Snow Tuesday 28th April

Kinderscout from the Whitehall Centre Tuesday 28th April

Gloucester Photographs

We stayed with good friends Carol and Al near Gloucester after lecturing to Cheltenham Photographic Society last night.

Today was sunny so we went for a walk along Painswick Beacon and back down to Upton St Leonards. Took some pictures from the top and of the Blow memorial on the way down.

This afternoon we went in to Gloucester docks. Lots of possible shots but I limited myself to 3 films, 30 shots.

All taken on 400 Delta Ilford film without a tripod.

Still trying to decide whether to use 400 Delta handheld or FP4 with a tripod.

Will process these films to help me decide. More to follow.

New Images - Kitzbuhel

Here are some new images of Kitzbuhel from our trip there in early February this year. There are a few variations on some of these on my gallery website.

Kitzbuhel Churches

Kitzbuhel at Night

Kitzbuhel Hahnenkamm Ski Trail

Kitzbuhel Horn Ski Tracks

Kitzbuhel Horn Tree

Westendorf Ski Welt Area from Kitzbuhel Pengelstein

Westendorf Ski Welt Area 

New Books Out Now - Snow Light and Land Light!

I'm now the author of 6 books, not counting my PhD thesis and Degree dissertation (very limited print runs for those)! My 2 newest books were delivered from Loop Printers in Sheffield on Tuesday, well half of them. Their van is too small to fit all 3000 copies on it.

This is the culmination of a project lasting over 10 months. I estimated that it would take 9 months, so it slipped by just one month. It had to fit in around shows, courses and making prints to fill orders, as well as making videos and writing articles for darkroomdave.com, etc. It needed lots of time scanning negatives, more than I expected as the images on my website up to October 2008 were scans from prints. These aren't good enough quality for my books and led to me re-scanning dozens of negatives. In fact I scanned getting on for 400 negatives to select the ones that we used. I can only scan negatives singly and edit one at a time so it was a huge amount of work. My bad back will take a while longer to recover from all those long hours in front of the computer!

Andy, of 10th Planet, has added them to my website Books page so that you can now buy them! We are selling them at £12 each, including UK shipping, instead of the £15 cover price. There is also an introductory bundle special offer of £20 for the 2 books together, again including UK shipping. Outside the UK we have to charge extra for the shipping. I will be adding them to my marketplace shop on Amazon UK over the next few days but they will be full price as Amazon take a hefty commission on every sale. You can also order through booksellers but these will be at full price as well as I don't use distributors, booksellers buy from us direct.

Both are the same dimensions as my previous 4 books, 24.5 x 27cm with 80 pages. Of course all images are in glorious black and white! There is the usual technical data on every image at the back of both books for those interested in the nuts of bolts of my photography.

Both books include images taken in the UK, Europe, USA and New Zealand.

Land Light has 119 images and an article on all my secrets on the equipment that I use, how I compose and take my photos, process the films, print in the darkroom, scan negatives and edit in Photoshop. There are quite a few coastal shots, waterfalls and a few castles liberally spread amongst the photographs. ISBN 978-0-9555627-4-7

Snow Light has 121 images and short articles on Winter Photography, Aerial Photography and one on my obsession to take a very specific photo in Colorado in Winter over a 9 year period. Lots of snowy images including lots taken while skiing, ski mountaineering, snowshoeing or while hiking through snowy landscapes in the winter. ISBN 978-0-9555627-3-0