In the latest edition of the Australian “Camera” Magazine there is a six page article of mine describing the lovely places and scenic spots that the area around Benalla in Central Victoria has to offer the landscape Photographer. I have been travelling up to Benalla Camera club on a couple of occasions to Lecture and Judge, and so invited members to come out and do some workshop time in the field with me while I was visiting. The photo’s in the article are a result of these outings with the club.

Before returning to Melbourne after conducting workshops with Ewen Bell in Norway and Iceland, I decided to have a little rest and recreation down at my Daughter’s place in the village of Wareham in Dorset, England. So some mornings and afternoons when the light was right….found me wandering the back roads and gravitating as always to the wonderful Jurassic coastlines of this part of England. The late Winter light was soft and quite delightful and I have selected a few of my favourite images that I shot in the few days I spent visiting the family.

The Icelandic Photographic Workshop came to a close with an unbelievable storm that swept up from the South and hit the coastline with winds of gusts up to 173 kms an hour! The group took shelter in a large farmhouse built with stables and training area on the ground floor. Six hours later towards evening they re-opened the road and we continued onto our last hotel for this journey. Between the fronts of weather we had the opportunity to spend about 5 hours photographing the superb icebergs that are scattered on the beach at Jokulsarlon. What made this more of a challenge was the fact that the first storm from which we all sheltered had kicked up the waves into a frenzy. With amazing back-lighting and cloud formations in the southern Skies we all worked to capture the unbelievable site along the coastline. this was the grand finale… and a beautiful one! A big thanks to all the lovely participants of this workshop… Greg and Val Earl, Ann Alcock, Pam Rixon, Linda Herd, Victoria Bell, Peter and Margaret Walton, Murray and Judy McEachern… and of course my great workshop mate Ewen Bell…a special thanks… it was a phenomenal trip and will not be easily forgotten by those who attended it.

Continuing with our Lofoten workshop in the Arctic circle of Norway had the group capture stunning images every day we worked our way through the Landscape. Warmer the usual for this time of the year, we got rain instead of snow on the second last night and morning of our journey. The wonderful snow that we had melted away and therefore we were presented with some challenges not often sen up here in the depths of winter. It turned out okay for us after all, as bursts of light came through the gloom and all of us were able to capture unusual and intriguing photographs of the coastlines and landscape. We left Lofoten, flew down to Bergen and spent a couple of days enjoying the city sights with a great side trip to some Fjords and Mountains…before flying out to our second destination… Iceland.

Iceland greeted us with sunshine the first day. Not bad for winter. In fact Ewen Bell and Myself had done a considerable amount of research for both the Arctic circle in Norway and our second workshop straight after in Iceland…as to the best time photographically, and this coupled with the best weather. This time of year is the absolute ideal combination of stable weather conditions and magnificent stunning photography. Snow scenes abound and the light show from the heavens…especially at night when the Northern lights are at their best, proved that we had done our research properly. It pays to listen to other professional photographers and not just read guidebooks! Our first three days here are incredible… Northern lights at night, wonderful back-lighting during the day…almost on cue, when we want it…and ever-changing skies. We got a beautiful dusting of snow last night and crunching through this to capture images is just totally amazing.