Here are some photographs I took during a very short trip to the Czech Republic in July. The reason for the trip was that a school friend of ours was getting married in the Czech countryside outside Prague but it was during term-time (Ed is a teacher) so we couldn’t make a longer trip of it. We flew out on the Thursday evening, spent Friday walking around Prague, Saturday with friends at the wedding in a little village called Chodeč (I was taking pictures for them), and then Sunday back in Prague before we had to fly home.
I visited Prague in 1992 with my parents when we lived out in Germany. I was only 6 at the time, and so didn’t fully take in the details, but it was obviously a vastly different experience visiting in 2016. I was pleased to see that carpet puppets and traditional marionettes are still a popular tourist product as they were when I was a child.
I wish we could have spent longer there as there was so much to see, but we still managed to pack in a lot of walking and see all the major sights in Prague itself. One day I’d love to go back and visit Karlovy Vary too. I’m a big fan of Wes Anderson and love his film ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ which was inspired by visits to European cities and towns such as Karlovy Vary. I love how bright and colourful the town is!
The photos are a mix of film (Portra 400, Noritsu scanned, Fujicolor C200, self scanned) and digital. If you’d like to know more about each of the photos, they’re hosted over on Flickr and I’ve geotagged them / added information about film and scanning in the tags.
These photos were taken during a trip to the Brecon Beacons over February half term. It’s a bit of a tradition for us to head to the mountains during the school holidays. Over February half term, the spring holidays in late March or early April, and then again at some point in August we head either north or south to Snowdonia or the Brecon Beacons. This time it was the Brecons and the plan was to make an ascent to the main ridge for dawn.
We drove down to South Wales on the Monday and climbed the ridge in daylight to make sure that it was safe for us to go up in the dark the next morning. It was the first time we’d climbed Pen y Fan and Corn Du, and even thought we knew it to be a well trodden path, after a hairy anniversary climb in the Glyderau back in August we were feeling extra cautious. It was bitterly cold up on the ridge even in the sunshine, but the views out west over the rest of the range were incredible. Looking up over Corn Du I could make out the moon hanging low in the sky just above the peak.
Back in August, Ed and I spent a week on holiday in Estonia. We stayed in a little studio apartment in Kalamaja, Tallinn, and hired a car for the week so that we could make daytrips out of the city, too. We spent a lot of time in Tallinn itself as it is a beautiful city with lots to see, but we also took daytrips to Haapsalu and Pärnu, and on a third day explored the grounds of Palmse Manor and Viru Bog in Lahemaa National Park. The week we visited, Estonia was experiencing a rare heatwave and so we were on the lookout for shade and water. On the way back from Haapsalu we stopped at Keila waterfall and on the way back from Lahemaa we visited Jägala waterfall, both of which are worth taking the scenic slow route home to see. The photos below are a mix of film and digital. The film photos were taken on Portra 160 and Fujicolor C200, which is why the colours are a little mixed. All of the photos are over on Flickr with geotags if you want to plan your own trip.
A collection of photos from a trip to Mauritius. Coming from the deepest, darkest depths of a northern-hemisphere winter, I was addicted to the light and barely put my camera down. The white buildings, white sand, big skies and open beaches created the most gorgeous soft box effect that I couldn’t get enough of. The photos are a mix of film (Portra 160, Noritsu scanned) and digital.
