Blog posts

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

We ran a 2 day private landscape photography course in Northumberland at the weekend, a drive of about 4.5 hours from home in the Peak District. Falkirk was about another hour or so further north so we decided, having driven […]

We have just returned home from running a 2 day private photography course in Northumberland. The weather was jolly kind to us, we had quite a bit of sunshine and no rain. The waves were spectacular too, with high tide […]

On Wednesday 18th March 2015, we went over to Loop Printers in Sheffield to supervise the start of the print run for my 2 new landscape photography books. This time we are having 2 books printed at the same time […]

We are doing our first show of the year in Buxton Pavilion Gardens this weekend. An Artist and Designer Fair,  open until 4.30pm. Lots of new photos, both mine and Jan’s. Dave Butcher www.davebutcher.co.uk www.darkroomdave.com

Yesterday we had a full day skiing, but in mostly poor weather. Lots of low cloud and flat light. Today was bright but windy. Just 5 lifts were running in the Crans-Montana ski area and by 1pm it was down […]

What a contrast to the rain and snow of yesterday. We had a lot of sunshine for our first day skiing at Crans-Montana in Switzerland. It was actually my second time skiing the Crans-Montana area as I had a 5 […]

Yesterday we flew out to Geneva and planned to take photos through the day today. Unfortunately, it rained on and off all day. I took no pictures during daylight and just 18 shots at dusk and night time. We had […]

Interesting walk to Buxton today, winter returned! Real blizzard on the way in this morning and again coming back this afternoon. In between sunny spells! Here’s a phone picture from this morning. Last Sunday my bad back went into spasm […]

My new book of landscapes without snow is looking like a book! We have the first draft, complete with covers and layout for most of the 80 pages. We need to move some images around to be in the right […]

My new book of snowy landscapes is starting to look like a book! We have the first draft, complete with covers and layout for most of the 80 pages. I forgot to include one of the three articles so that […]

It was our sixth and final day of skiing from Kitzbuhel. We went back to Westendorf so that I could take some photos as I didn’t carry my Mamiya 7 camera the last time. There was low cloud for most […]

The forecast was a bit iffy for today, but we ignored it and went to the farthest part of the Kitzbuhel ski area anyway. We started with the now familiar Hahnenkamm and other lifts to reach the gondola from Pengelstein […]

Today we decided to visit the neighbouring ski area of Ski-Welt. Mainly the areas above Westendorf and Brixen. It’s not entirely linked with ski lifts and involved some vehicular assistance.  We started by taking the Hahnenkamm lift at 10am followed […]

We had sunshine all day and lots of fresh snow everywhere. Started the day taking photos in Kitzbuhel for an hour or two. Samsung S3 photo but also taken on proper film camera, Mamiya 7 with Ilford FP4 120 film […]

We had steady snowfall from late afternoon yesterday. It was still snowing for this morning but eased off mid-afternoon. I didn’t carry my Mamiya 7 camera as I had some muscle spasms in my back yesterday. Thought we’d have an […]

It was sunny for our first day of skiing in Kitzbuhel as we headed up the Hahnenkamm lift and over to Pengelstein. Took a while to get used to my new Salomon boots and hire skis. We were surprised how […]

My 2 new books have reached the final stage. All 231 image files plus the articles,  technical data tables, ISBN numbers and my brief are all with Andy, my graphic designer. It will take about 3 weeks to pull everything […]

Found this post sitting in my blog drafts. No idea why I didn’t post when I wrote it in September but suspect blogger crashed again on my mobile and I forgot to go back to it: Just received a photo, […]

I have been busy scanning images for my new books and have finished the section of images for the Dolomites that I will select from. Here’s a sample from them. Tre Cime di Lavaredo Tre Cime di Lavaredo Tre Cime […]

We are doing a show at RHS Wisley with Craft in Focus. It’s the highest quality show that we do and there are about 150 designer-maker exhibitors from all over the country. It’s on right now until this Sunday (30th […]

We are in the middle of doing our last art and craft fair in Buxton for this year. It’s the Artist and Designer Fair in Buxton Pavilion Gardens. Open 10am to 4.30pm tomorrow, Sunday 23rd November, free entry. About 45 exhibitors […]

Lecturing to Cannock Photo Soc tonight 8pm ko. http://www.darkroomdave.com/events/lecture-city-light-cannock/ Dave Butcher www.davebutcher.co.uk www.darkroomdave.com

In September 2014 we visited Vienna for the first time. I took 22 rolls of 120 film on my Mamiya 7 cameras, with 10 shots to a roll. In order to put them on my website I have scanned the […]

It’s the first day of the Crafts For Christmas Show at the NEC Hall 19.Open until Sunday 9th November, 9.30am to 5.30pm. Free entry into Hobbycrafts Show as well. Several hundred exhibitors in both shows. Our stand is F06. Here […]

I am lecturing to Bury Photographic Society tonight. It’s my Peak Light lecture with lots of Peak District photos from my Peak Light book as well as cities, Alps and Yosemite. Here are the details. http://www.darkroomdave.com/events/lecture-peak-light-bury/ There’s no charge if you […]

It was the first day of the Crafts For Christmas Show at the Glasgow SECC. If you are coming along our stand is D11. We have lots of photographs with show offers. Jan’s colour photos too. It’s a couple of […]

My October newsletter has just gone out. Lots of new landscape photos, especially Alpine ones. News of events in run up to Christmas and new City Light lecture too. Reichenbach Falls, Alpine Pass Route, Switzerland City Light lecture prints ready […]

I’m lecturing to the Mercia Photographic Group in Coventry tonight, starting at 8pm. It’s the second time out for my new lecture City Light with the first section being from my book of the same name. After the break there […]

It was the first day of the Great Peak District Fair today in Buxton Pavilion Gardens. We’re in the Octagon as usual with a full stand of photographs. Busy show so far. Sunday we open at 10am and the show […]

What a spectacular day we’ve had in the Lake District! Sunshine pretty much all day. We’ve come away for a few days taking photos. Today we went up Scafell Pike, highest mountain in England, to take the pictures I would […]

I have just finished pulling together my latest lecture. It’s called City Light after my book of the same name. Lots of hints and tips throughout and explaining how I pull my pictures together. Its a print lecture, as usual. […]

Jolly nice day in Vienna today. We took lots of photos. New places as well as some previously visited in poor weather in last 2 days. I have some decent shots and hopefully they will appeal to people who know […]

Today was a big day for us in more ways than one. Lots to photograph after the day time washout yesterday and lots of walking. In fact Jan’s Fitbit said we walked just over 20 miles! The distance came from […]

On our way back to our hotel for a break in the photography proceedings I noticed this shop window. Analogue photography is obviously still thriving here. A large part of the shop window was given over to Ilford pinhole cameras, […]

Jan and I are in Vienna for a few days. We seem to be just in time to catch the monsoon season! Lots of rain. We arrived here late morning. There was a 2 hour spell in early evening just […]

Ilford Photo asked me if I could provide prints with my images on their 3 new fibre based Multigrade papers for Photokina. This is the worlds largest photo and imaging fair, held every 2 years in Cologne in Germany (Tuesday 16th […]

I have added several new vertical panoramics of Italian towns and cities as well as a couple in London. They are on the Recently Added pages for the next month or two and can also be found on the relevant […]

We are doing an event this weekend at Wellington College near Bracknell. That’s the Royal ‘We’, Jan is running our stand on her own! Over 100 high quality art and contemporary craft exhibitors. Here is a link to the web […]

In June 2014 I walked a circular route in the Lake District with my good friend Al from Gloucester. We have done quite a few treks together including Glasgow to Cape Wrath (334 miles over 26 mountains 2003 to 2005) […]

I changed all of my framed photographs in my display in the Gallery in the Gardens in Buxton Pavilion Gardens. There are a few new prints in the browsers too. I had been meaning to make the change for some […]

Here are a few newly scanned images from a ski mountaineering trip along the Western Bernese Oberland Traverse in Switzerland. Arpelistock Sunrise Ascent  Grossstrubel from Schwarzhorn Schwarzhorn Summit View South  Wildstrubel View  Here’s a couple from the Saas Fee and […]

I am busy scanning snowy pictures for my new book and have added quite a few to the web site. Here’s a selection of the ones around Chamonix, especially Mont Blanc. Mont Blanc Panoramic from Brevent Mont Blanc from Tete […]

I have been fortunate enough to have a few rides in aircraft other than big airliners. This gives some scope for taking photographs, which is difficult from big planes as the windows are several layers thick and distort the view. […]