I popped over to North Wales again just before the onslaught of the recents rain storms and shot some running pictures, the light was quite nice but it didn’t quite have the intensity I was after so I dragged out the Elinchrom Ranger RX flashes and the Nikon D3x and shot a few pictures using heavy flash, I have to say I’m pretty pleased with the results, lets hope the images buyers of the world agree.

After a very brief visit home, it was a quick turn around and back to Alpe d’Huez to shoot the Mountain Warehouse Winter 12/13 brochure. This year it was all about lifestyle photography rather than action photography, which in hindsight, was an absolute blessing because believe it or not the weather was even worse than for the Ski Club shoot the week previously. It was snowing quite heavily which was great, but with it came fog! Nothing can kill an outdoor photo shoot stone dead like fog can, so we spent the next 4 days trying our best to get above it or below with varying degrees of success. At one point we went up to 3300m to get above it, which didn’t work at all and just succeeded in freezing the models hair in the -10 wind chill. When the weather is that bad I generally try and fill the frame with the model as much as possible, leaving less room for grey skies, I also punched up the colour on the sensor of my new Nikon D4, this was straight out of the box and I have to say is an utterly incredible bit of kit.

It all worked out in the end but it was hard going, good job I had such a great crew with me because even though the weather was bad, spirits where sky high and we had so much fun. Many, many thanks to Rebecca, Martin, Duncan and Charlotte from Sandra Reynolds, Anna, Craig and Emily from Mountain Warehouse and once again the Chamois and Underground for keeping us feed and watered (booze)

Straight after our visit to Vallandry, Kev and I drove over to Alpe d’ Huez to do some ski photography for the Ski Club’s Fresh Tracks brochure, after meeting up with everyone and getting passes organised we managed to get up the hill for an afternoon of blue skies, even though the snow wasn’t at it’s best we still managed to get a few nice shots done, and it’s a good job we did too, as the next day the weather turned against us and stayed that way for the whole time. When the chips are down drag out the flashes, that’s what I say, so, much to everyones disgust, we spent the next few days lugging very heavy gear around a very foggy and stormy mountain trying our best to get a few shots done, which we managed in the end but it was pretty tough. Many thanks to Kneissl for the use of the Black Star ski’s the crew loved them, and to Hotel le Chamois and the Underground bar for their help and Dare2b’s Southwell brothers for coming over to shoot.

Here’s a few shots of some impressive cloud formations and stormy skies taken over the last few weeks in the alps. I think I might start to do a bit more landscape photography this year!

Hot on the heels of Saas Fee I headed to Vallandry with Kev Harris to produce a few pictures of the new ION Air Pro Sports Camera. This is the new kid on the block to rival Go Pro. It really is a nice piece of kit and comes with all sorts of accessories and attachments to get right in on the action.

This year we had a change of venue for the Snow and Rock winter catalogue shoot, it was in Saas Fee, Switzerland. This was a place I’d worked in before but always in the summer, so it was great to see what it had to offer during the winter, although I did have reservations about the fact that it was pretty much glacier top to bottom, which makes hiking a fairly sketchy experience. We did have a great guide with us for the whole shoot so that made things a whole lot safer. The snow was in great condition and we had a blast and got some great shots, more of which I will post in October after the catalogue launch.

Whilst shooting in Tenerife with Dare2b this month I worked with Óscar Pereiro winner fo the 2006 Tour de France,

Here’s a portrait I took of him on Mount Teide.

Tenerife blew me away, what an awesome place, I was there shooting for Dare2b and it was a blast, we spent 4 days in a dormant volcano which was a really harsh environment for both photographer and camera. The images we shot won’t be out until next year so I’ll post some landscapes I shot very quickly on the run.

So within 12 hours of getting back from Verbier I was on my way to the George the Third Hotel in Penmaenpool, Dolgellau, to shoot the Spring / Summer 12 range for Mountain Warehouse. Once again I was working with Noddy Gowerns who was filming some product clips. After a great nights sleep in our superb rooms we woke up to fog which was pretty much down to toe level. Not to be put off and after a good breakfast we headed out and started work, happily the fog was starting to lift a little and our models Charlotte, Sarah, Duncan and Martin from Sandra Reynolds soon got into the swing of things. We had a couple of really good days up in the hills, down in the moss filled valleys and on the beautiful beaches  of the Mawddach estuary. After which we returned to sunny Shropshire and met up with the kids at Carding Mill Valley in Church Stretton. All in all it was a really fun shoot, but after 4 days we all had to say goodbye, but only for a while until we meet up again in the alps in April. I then went home for a day before flying out to Tenerife for my next job.

While shooting on the beach in Wales this month for Mountain Warehouse we experienced some really nice bursts of sun breaking through the overcast skies, so I thought I’d share a couple with you.