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Zell am See and Kaprun Ski Photo Trip 2018

Jan and I are in Zell am See in Austria for the skiing and photography. The weather was mixed, some great blue sky days, some where we skied above the clouds and some where it was snowing, thick cloud and limited visibility. The snow was mostly god with just a few icy patches lower down.

Photography

I took my Mamiya 7 camera with me and 8 rolls of Ilford 120 film, with just 10 shots to a roll. I’m being selective in what I take so that I don’t need to carry much film these days.

We flew from Manchester Airport for a change but they refused my written request several weeks ago for a hand search of my film, hand searches are against their policy. I would have brought more films if they had agreed to a hand search. I put the film in a Domke lead-lined bag. It went through the x-ray scanner with my hand luggage but they pulled it to one side for a hand inspection as the lead bag worked, they couldn’t see the film inside it using x-rays. They pulled the films out of the bag, took a swab and tested it in the machine that checks for drugs and explosives. The films were given the all clear. So they ended up doing the hand search on my films that they refused to do and the lead-lined bag did it’s job. Despite what airports and Ilford say I have seen x-ray damage on my FP4 negatives (rated at 125 ISO) after just 3 passes through x-ray hand luggage scanners. With 400 Delta being over twice as sensitive to light and x-rays as FP4, damage was much more likely to happen. On the return, Salzburg airport did a hand search as soon as we requested it, just as they have done previously.

I took photos with my mamiya 7 camera on 4 of the 6 days, exposing all 8 rolls of Ilford 120 film, 4x Ilford 400 Delta and 4x Ilford FP4+. Mostly the shots were handheld but I did use my small Gitzo tripod for some shots of Zell am See at dusk.

I also took photos on my Motorola Moto-X phone, although it was a bit temperamental in cold temperatures.

Zell am See

Zell am See is a small town on the shores of Lake Zeller See. We travelled there with Inghams Ski, who we have used many times before, and stayed at the excellent Hotel Fischerwirt near the Lake. The skiing is accessed by the City Express fast gondola and it is possible to ski down to this lift from the top, although the snow was a bit thin and icy in places by the end of the week.

There were several bars offering Apres Ski outside hotels, usually starting around 4pm, and we tried a couple before deciding that we preferred the one outside the Hotel zum Hirschen. We dropped our gear at our hotel and changed out of ski boots and went back as it was just 3 or 4 minutes walk from our hotel. There was some snow in the town and Christmas lights everywhere to make it pretty even though there was a lot of concrete and not a lot of traditional wooden chalets.

Zell am See Skiing

We spent most of the time skiing in the Zell am See area. We also spent 1 day skiing the Kaprun glacier area but the slopes were less interesting although the mountain scenery was spectacular. The main area was called Schmitten and it had great views not just from the top but lower slopes too, greatly helped by the lake down below.

Ordering Black and White Fine Art Prints

If you would like a black and white print as a memento of your trip, all of the black and white images are available. They were taken with a Mamiya 7 camera on Ilford 120 film and are available as high quality hand made darkroom prints in a range of sizes from 40x30cm to 70x70cm (size refers to mount and frame, image is a few cm smaller).

They all have a 6 digit number at the end of the title to uniquely identify the negative to help ordering – just type this number into the search box in the World Landscapes Gallery and it will show the image and ordering information. Not all images are included so if you can’t find the ones that interest you just send me an email using the Contact page form on this website and we’ll sort out the details between us.

Kaprun Skiing

This was a short bus ride away from Zell am See with all the skiing on a glacier accessed by a cable car (Gletscherjet 1) and then gondola lift (Gletscherjet 2). The best viewpoint was right at the very top looking at the mountains beyond the Kaprun ski area. Looked like good ski mountaineering country!

There were long queues for the infrequent bus so we took a taxi for the short ride back to Zell am See. It was good to ski Kaprun but I’m in no hurry to go back.

Zeller See Lakeside Walk

Our 6th and last day was spent walking rather than skiing. My bad back was painful so I thought it would be better for it. We decided to walk around the lake, which was about 8.5 miles.