About 3 years ago whispers started to emerge in the Sheffield climbing scene that Johnny was writing a book about his life, I initially took it with a pinch of Salt, I'd heard similar rumours before. In the interim Jerry Moffatt, perhaps Britain’s most famous rock climber released his autobiography, everybody loved it. Then a year later another legend of British rock climbing "Big" Ron Fawcett released a book, I was in nostalgic climbing nirvana, Ron was my all time hero - come on JD what are you playing at? The Jerry, Ron, Johnny triumvirate needs to be completed - Nothing.

A year later I was on a trip to a small Scottish Island in the Outer Hebrides called Pabbay, part of the team was Steve McClure, Britain’s best rock climber. One night we were all huddled round the stove waiting for dinner to finish cooking and he pulled out some crumpled sheets of paper and started to read them. “What you reading Ste” I asked, “Johnny’s life story” he answered with a wry smile, bloody hell gold dust! The pages got passed around and after an hour or so of “pass the paper” everyone agreed it was dynamite.

Fast forward to the summer of 2011 and I bump into a long term friend and designer Al Williams who, as it turns out has been working very closely with Johnny pulling the book together ready for print, hearing this got me really excited, it wasn’t just rumours anymore, it was fact. A month later my phone buzzed, txt message. It was from the great, little man himself, Johnny Dawes, asking me if he could use one of my photos in his book. Years before, way back in 1986 Johnny had climbed a route called Slab and Crack E8 6c, which was, and still is pretty cutting edge and he wanted to write about it, but didn’t have any photos to include. Some 22 years later Lucy Creamer became the first British woman to climb a Gritstone route of this grade with her ascent and I was there taking the photos - Of course you can have some photos Johnny, I'd be honoured, It's not everyday you get the opportunity to contribute to one of your very own hero's books, bring it on.

To cut a long story short said photo was dually dispatched and a couple of months later JD turned up at the house with a copy of his newly printed book “Full of myself” what a great title.

Here are a couple of pages from the finished book, with my image of Lucy on the right. - I'm chuffed to say the least, looks good doesn't it?

For anyone who knows Johnny the book is a “blast into the past” for those that only know him by reputation it’s a glimpse into the workings of a genius and for anyone wanting a “rip roaring read” straight out of “Boys own” but with a slightly dysfunctional twist to it, it'll hook you and pull you slowly but surely all the way in.

If you fancy reading a review on the book by top climbing writer John Horscroft you can find one on his website, or indeed buy the book on either Amazon or Johnny's own website.

You won't be able to put it down, garunteed.

So without further ado I'm going to go over each item and tell you why it worked for me - Take it away guys.

Marmot Kingpin Jacket

"Impervious to wind and very unfriendly to water, the Kingpin Jacket derives its amazing properties from Polartec® Power Shield® fabric, which uses a perforated membrane to effectively manage air permeability and wind resistance, even during strenuous activity. Packed with pro features, its also highly abrasion resistant, to deliver years of flawless performance"

That's what Marmot have to say about it - This softshell jacket is equally good to wear on the hill or in the pub, as I have done on many occasions. It looks good and feels better, I wore it for a weeks ice climbing over the top of a thin base and mid-layer and felt perfectly "toasty" The hood is cut to allow you to wear a helmet and on windy belays this feature was very much appreciated. Four front pockets (two large) and a small ski pass / key pocket on the wrist are well thought out as is the slightly longer cut of the back which keeps your bum warm. It also packs up pretty small so can be packed away easily.

Really loved this piece the moment I unpacked it and after using it for several months now I'm not disappointed by any aspect of it.

Marmot Pro Tour Pant

"A no-compromise solution for hard-charging shralpers who don’t make excuses for the weather or surface conditions. The remarkable performance of Polartec® Power Shield® windproof, water-resistant fabric is married to a wealth of features, including removable suspenders for those deep powder days, and zip leg cuffs with internal gaiters. This is one tough pant for hard-core sliders"

I love my Pro Tour Pants. They're everything I want from a pair of trousers that I'm going to go skiing, climbing and walking in.

I've had a pair of these for about 2 months prior to going away and even though it hasn't been particularly cold here in England, as usual it’s been wet. I've worn them in torrential downpours and even though they aren't advertised as being waterproof my legs have stayed dry. In fact the only time they've got wet was on a hanging belay up an Icefall in Italy. The Sun was out and the Ice started to melt, the bolted belay was directly under the drip, drip, drip and after about 40 minutes my right knee succumbed to the bombardment and got a little damp, but it was soon forgotten and dried out very quickly.

I haven’t actually been Skiing in these pants yet but I'm sure they'll be awesome, they fit me well, don't have an excessive amount of useless pockets everywhere and I love the fact that I can "zip off" the braces, or Suspenders as our American friends like to call them. The cut isn't too tight fitting round the legs, nor too baggy near the ankles (so you don't have to worry about tripping over them in your crampons) I wore them in a couple of feet of powder while trying to "swim" up to the base of a route and the internal gaiters stopped any snow creeping up my legs.

I've also used them for just wandering around in the Derbyshire peak district near my home; they are light enough to feel comfortable even in mild weather.

On my trip to Italy I wore them with the Kingpin jacket, definitely one of the best combinations I've ever used.

Marmot Windstopper Convertible Glove

"A unique magnetic closure allows this glove to convert from bombproof winter armour to lightweight fingerless glove in seconds. Perfect for all-season alpinists, GORE® WINDSTOPPER® fabric fights off chills and biner loops are compatible with any rig"

Never mind "biner loops" what about camera dials? Yep loved these little beauties from the moment I got them, simple idea, but then the best ideas always are. They're a pair of Mitt’s that turns into a pair of fingerless gloves, genius. Peel back the top third of the glove to expose the more dexterous fingerless part, while the bit you've just peeled down is held out of the way by a clever little magnet, which is hidden away inside the material.

I don't often suffer from cold hands, if I'm working in very cold conditions I tend to work on the premise that I wear a "silk weight" glove so I can actually feel the controls of my cameras and when they get unbearably cold I stick em in the chest pockets of my jacket. This works most of the time but after a prolonged period the old fingers tend to seize up and "Hot Aches invariable set in, O hot aches how I loathe thee! I used these gloves on a really windy day while I was photographing Dog sledding and when I wasn't shooting away it was just a flick of the wrist and the Mitts were back in place whilst I moved to a new position and the fingers were toasty all day - result.

Scarpa Phantom Ultra

Grivel Quantum Tech

"The ultimate axe for technical climbers with aerospace grade composite. Hot forged head in chromolly steel: no compromise over quality because forging internal microstructure can be oriented to improve strength, and internal defects or porosity are minimized. Available with shovel or hammer.

Carbon Composite shaft: no compromise over quality because composite materials means that the parts of the final product subject to major pressure that require more strength and rigidity can be designed specifically to enhance these characteristics. This vital aspect is made possible by the type of reinforcement and the orientation of the fibres, and the light alloy matrix transfers load to the external reinforcement in Carbon fibre"

Over the last few years Ice axes have developed into things that resemble nothing like the ones I learned to climb with, well I guess they still have a shaft and a head, the head still has a pick on one end of it and occasionally a hammer or an adze on the opposite, but all likenesses cease right there. The curved black carbon shaft, the yellow knuckle protector, the profiled rubber grip and all-in-one head are nothing, nothing like my old Simond's where. I'm not climbing any harder with my Quantum Tech's, WI5 is still WI5, but they're so much easier to use, much more well balanced and easier to swing, the Monster picks need a little modification for climbing pure waterfall ice but essentially they're almost perfect straight out of the box.

Grivel G20 - Cramp-O-Matic

"The evolution of the modern technique of climbing ice push towards a more fluid motion, more elegant and faster, therefore it demands a crampon that makes it possible: a technical crampon, and a super-light one.

G20 is a crampon 100% technical, reliable, efficient and the LIGHTEST IN THE WORLD: less than 800 grams per pair! The new MONO-RAIL technology (patented) distributes the 12 points in an intelligent and original way"

Super light, super rigid, fits my Scarpa boots perfectly. Easy to walk in, very precise to climb in, another perfect in my eyes, really love these little beauties.

F-Stop Tilopa BC

"The Tilopa BC has everything you need to crossover from a gear intensive day shoot or a night in the backcountry. 48-liter capacity, added reinforcements and the ability to carry the tools of most any sport make this our marquis all-‘rounder"

I've already written a piece about this exceptionally brilliant backpack - see it here It's the pack I've been waiting for someone to make for about 10 years. Essentially it's a camera backpack that thinks, looks and feels like it’s a rucksack. Just buy the ICU (Internal camera unit) which best suits you needs, they come in all shapes and sizes, just like kit. Put a small amount of camera kit in the smallest ICU and have loads of room for a day on the hill - I carried all my Ice climbing gear (crampons, axes, screws, harness, karabiners etc) as well as a belay jacket, food, water, and extra mid-layer, two pairs gloves and two 60m ropes. The pack is exceptionally well made, super comfy and has all the features I ever dreamt of from a backpack - go F-stop.

Lumix GH1

"The DMC-GH1 is not just a high performance still picture camera. Amazingly it can record Full-HD movies at 1080/25p or smooth HD movies at 720/50p in AVCHD with a continuous AF function. It also features a stereo microphone, featuring Dolby Digital Stereo Creator to record high quality audio. Just press the 'one touch' Motion Picture button, and shooting begins. In the unique Creative Movie mode, the shutter speed and aperture can be adjusted. When the DMC-GH1 is connected to a Panasonic VIERA via an optional mini HDMI cable, the TV's remote control unit can be used to enjoy playing back with a greater convenience"

This isn't a new model, there's a GH2 and now a G3, although that, at least to me, seems a slightly "dumbed down" prosumer GH2. The reason I've had one of these little gems in my camera bag for the last couple of weeks is because I'm getting old and I'm fed up of paying large amounts to physios. I haven't used the camera enough to give you an in-depth review just yet as I'm just about managing to find my way round all the controls and menus, but it does seem to work really well in sub-zero temps and works (in manual mode) with my Nikon SB800's and Pocket Wizards, which has got to be good. I'll keep you posted as I find out a little more about this incredible system camera.

Lumix G Vario 7-14mm f/4.0 ASPH

"In spite of its impressive wide-angle zoom range of 7-14mm (35mm film camera equivalent; 14-28mm), this lens is surprisingly compact and lightweight for casual on-the-go use. Taking advantage of its wide, 114-degree angle of view, it enables to fit subjects into the frame easily even when shooting indoors where the distance is limited. The world looks extraordinary when viewing through the new lens, allowing photos and movies* to be recorded with a uniquely rich perspective" Amazing is the word that immediately springs to mind when I think of this lens and tiny. Its coverage is eqivilent to my Nikon 14-28mm f/2.8 but it's just a quarter of its weight and size; in fact it's so small it easily fitted in to the hip pocket of my skinny jeans! As soon as I looked through the viewfinder it was love at first sight. Adore this optic.

Leica DG Summilux 25mm /f1.4 ASPH

"The LEICA DG SUMMILUX 25mm / F1.4 ASPH. (35 mm camera equivalent: 50mm), based on the Micro Four Thirds System standard, features outstanding brightness of F1.4 realized in the compact and light weight profile. The extraordinary brightness allows a beautiful soft focus for photo and video to be even more impressive and encourages users not to use the flash even in dimly lit conditions. Certified with the name of world-renowned LEICA, the exceptional high image quality is guaranteed" A couple of months ago I Wrote a Blog about my "new favourite lens" I was talking about my Nikon 50mm f/1.4, this tiny lens from Leica is of course the same focal length with the Micro Four Thirds crop and is just an absolute joy to use.

Lumix G Vario 14-140mm f/4.0-5.8 ASPH

"The lens system uses 4 aspherical lenses and 2 ED lenses to achieve dramatic downsizing despite it’s a wide and long zoom range of 14-140mm (35mm film camera equivalent: 28-280mm), while minimizing distortion and chromatic aberration. This lens suits a large variety of shooting situations, from scenery to portraits or telephoto shots, in a surprisingly compact and lightweight body"

This is the lens that comes as a camera/lens kit and I guess the word to best describe it is versatile. This would be a whopping 28-280mm lens on a 35mm, that’s a hefty piece of glass, which again is incredibly small and comes with image stabilisation to help hold it still - if I was only going to take one lens with me to cover most eventualities this would be that lens.

I'll put a proper review together for the lumix kit in a few weeks when I've had a proper chance to use it in a few more different scenarios.

All in all the kit I used on the trip was some of the best and most inspiring kit I've ever had the pleasure to use. When everything works exactly how you'd like it to work its easy to forget just how good it is and all of my new "stuff" was just about as good as it gets.

It’s January. Which in England usually means miserable wet days that seem to last for about 4 hours, then it gets dark again! It’s a day like that today. It started ok,  a smattering of blue peeping out behind the ominous black storm clouds brewing in the distance. But then high winds buffeted the trees out on the morning’s dog walk. But wind I can deal with. Around lunch time, just as I was tucking in to my second piece of toast and Marmite the heavens opened and it hasn’t stopped since. I think the lights in the house went on around 14:30 which doesn't seem unusual!

Don’t get me wrong now, Britain in winter can and occasionally is, very beautiful. When the sun does come out the light is amazing and you feel privileged when it kisses you, but it doesn’t seem to happen that much. Grey, best describes the months of January and February and more often than not my mood, SO, when I got asked by Matt Heason, organiser of the Sheffield Adventure Film Festival, if I’d like to be a judge at this years event I jumped at the chance. My long dark evenings could now be filled with colour, excitement and adventure. Matt was actually quite apologetic about the number of films I’d have to watch, “No Matt really, it’s absolutely fine. I’d love to watch 100’s (slight exaggeration I think there are actually 75 that have made it onto the festival programme) of films about far flung places, exciting people doing exciting things, it’s just what my “Grey period” needs to counteract it.

I’m not going to bore you with MY details, but I just want to put a few links on the page and tell you a little about what you can expect to see during the Festival and of course the dates. So without further ado, may I introduce to you Mr Matt Heason of Heason Events and the Sheffield Adventure Film Festival, ShAFF for short.

Sounds good doesn't it? For a full programme of events go here

If you can't wait till March to get you're Adrenaline fix then as a lead up to the festival ShAFF are also holding a series of "Expert Nights" to wet the preverbial appetite, I'll habd over to Matt Heason again to explain, take it away Matt "To whet your appetite ahead of the 2012 Sheffield Adventure Film Festival (March 9-11) we’ve lined up three evenings celebrating the cream of the crop of adventure sports which make Sheffield and the Peak District the adventure capital of the UK"

"We’re holding three Thursday night Expert Evenings on off-road running (9th Feb), climbing (23rd Feb) and mountain-biking (1st March) at the Showroom Cinema with panels of world-class athletes who will talk about their careers, events and offer tips and advice.

Sheffield Adventure Film Festival Director Matt Heason said:  “It’s a reflection of just how vibrant the Sheffield adventure sports scene is that we’re able to put on such an impressive line-up of speakers ahead of the main festival weekend.  Steve Peat is a Sheffield legend.  His Q&A at last year’s festival sold out so fast we had to double the size of the screening room so we’re delighted he’s back for an expert night, bringing the best of young talent with him.  Pete and Tom have climbed some of the hardest cracks in the USA and it’s a real treat to have them give their first talk about their adventures here in Sheffield.  And kicking the series off we’re honoured that Sheffield running store Accelerate has put together and sponsored an evening with some of the UK’s most impressive ultra runners and adventure racers.”

Sheffield Adventure Film Festival Judge,Team GB duathlete & adventure sports writer, Nik Cook said:  “It’s a great chance to meet genuine experts in their field, pick their brains and hear first-hand about their adventures.  Living, training and working in the Peak District I know how lucky we are to have incredible mountain bike trails and running routes as well as world-class gritstone rock and great indoor climbing walls right on our doorstep.  To my mind, it’s no exaggeration to say that Sheffield and the Peak District can lay claim to being the adventure capital of the UK.”

EXPERT EVENING PROGRAMME DETAILS

9th February 20.15 - RUNNING

For anyone who wants to find out what's involved in Ultra Running and Beyond, now is your chance - from a Bob Graham to the Lakeland 100 and even a multi sport 900km non stop adventure race...
 
Trail Running Magazine editor, Claire Maxted, and Adventure Journalist and ultra runner, Nik Cook, will lead the audience and panel of experts through a series of questions about the challenges of Ultra Running and Beyond.  This will be backed up by the real life experience of finding time to train, summoning the strength of mind to continue running when the body is screaming 'stop' and what it is like to race in the Adventure Race World Series as the only female in a team of 4.

Audience participation will be invited throughout the evening in what promises to be an unveiling of what it is like to be training and competing in an ultra and then recovering... and that's on top of a normal everyday life!

Nik Cook: Peak District based Adventure journalist & Sheffield Adventure Film Festival judge, ultra runner, advocate of barefoot and GB Duathlete.

Dan Shrimpton: Sheffield based ultra runner, who despite having a hectic job, young family finds time to win the Hardmoors 55, Lyke Wake (42 miles) and finished 4th in the UK Ultra Series, 2011, at his first attempt.  

Stuart Walker: Record Holder for the fastest ever solo and unsupported crossing of Hadrian's Wall (84 miles). 8th Lakeland 100, 6th in category UK Ultra Series.  Confirmed finalist for 2012 Adventure Racing World Championships.  Considered, by many, as one of the UK's top up coming ultra talents.

Caz Bullard: One of the UK's top adventure racers and regularly competes in Expedition style, multi day non stop races around the World. She finished 8th in her first World Series event and is now in search of that elusive win following a 2nd in the Terrex- UK and a 3rd place in XPD Africa.  As a result she has already qualified for the 2012 Adventure Racing World Championships final.

Caz and Stuart are both sponsored by New Balance, High 5 Sports Nutrition and SKINS.

The evening has been put together and sponsored by Sheffield based running company, Accelerate with additional support from New Balance.

The audience will also have the opportunity to win trail shoes from New Balance in a free to enter prize draw. There will also be goodie bags with stuff from New Balance and Trail Running magazine.

23rd February 20.15 - CLIMBING


Peak based climbers Tom Randall and Pete Whittaker (aka The Wide Boyz) have become household names recently with an amazing string of ascents of the world's hardest offwidths, culminating in their first ascent of Century Crack which, at 5.14b / 8c or E10 is now the world's hardest wide crack. And as well as that they've finally proved to Americans that, in their own words 'Brits aren't crap at crack climbing' and forced a few re-evaluations of what's possible with plenty of effort.

In this first joint lecture / slideshow since their return from the USA they'll tell tall (maybe that should be wide) tales from their trip, divulge some of their secrets, talk about crack technique and demonstrate how they trained for the world's hardest crack. And with a bit of luck they'll also be unveiling their special 'secret weapon' for the first time ever which will guarantee a night of thrills - and spills.  
So for anyone who doesn't know their 'widepony' from their 'trout-tickler' or even their 'armbar' from the pub bar, this is a must see lecture from two of the most charismatic guys on the UK climbing scene.

1st March 20.15 - MOUNTAIN BIKING


Sheffield’s Mountain Bike scene is arguably the most vibrant in the country with a wealth of superb cross-country trails in the Peak District, a thriving downhill community and a number of promising young riders hellbent on following in the tracks of local legend, Steve Peat.  So, what better way for the Bike Expert Night to celebrate that scene than to take a close look at some of the young guns making a name for themselves in a diverse range of bike disciplines?  James ‘Swinny’ Swinden, Josh ‘Loosedog’ Lewis, Annie Last and Abbie Taylor are Sheffield hard-chargers with talent to burn.  Local mountain biker, scribe and rabble-rouser John Horscroft and special guest Steve Peat will be asking the questions and finding out what makes the next generation of super-shredders tick.
James ‘Swinny’ Swinden has steadily built a reputation for phenomenal pace in the National Downhill Series and has a huge viral video presence.  2012 however could be the big year for Swinny as he has just joined the Steve Peat Syndicate and moved up to the Elite category in this year’s series.
Josh ‘Loosedog’ Lewis has a similar story to Swinny. Known as one of Steve Peat’s protégées, he’s got big boots to fill. But with a huge personality and a growing profile in the UK scene, he’s another Junior rider to look out for.   There’s every chance we’ll see him moving up the rankings in 2012.
Abbie Taylor is an Olympic hopeful in the newly added sport of BMX Racing. A World Silver Medalist in 2011, she regularly mixes it up with the top Female Elite riders.  She is now receiving help from British Cyclings’s Olympic Development program which could be all the help she needs to take things to the next level.

Sonds great doesn't it, I'll keep you posted on the film front and let you know my personal favourites as I watch them - see you there.

F-stop is actually a Camera bag manufacturer from North America – “Not another camera bag manufacturer” I hear you moan, well no, not exactly. F-stop cater more for the photographer who find themselves outdoors, up mountains, on rivers, skiing, hiking, operating in harsh environments, having said that their bags are so well made they wouldn’t be out of place next to Anna Wintour at a Vogue photo shoot.

I first became aware of F-stop about two years ago when I saw a piece about them on the web. I have to admit to having a bit of a bag fetish, not perhaps a fetish, more of a "quest" yes that’s a good description. I'm on a Quest to find the ultimate camera bag, a bag that until now only exists in my restless dreams.

F-stop have been shipping their bags from the USA for quite a while now and from a warehouse in Europe since summer 2011, but call me old fashioned if you will but I like to “try before I buy” I like to pick the bag up, have a good old “fettle” with it, pop it on my back, fill it with my camera gear and decide “is it going to work for me” The reason F-stop are unique is that unlike most camera bags, they come as a shell outer only and then you buy an ICU (Internal Camera Unit – which come in many different shapes and sizes) which suits your individual needs. Another great advantage to the F-stop system is that, unlike most conventional back-packs, it’s the back of the pack that opens, not the front, so when you put your pack down to take out a piece of gear and the ground is wet, your back support isn’t soaking wet for the rest of the day!

The concept of the ICU is an inspirational way of thinking and totally revolutionises the way I “pack-in” my kit. Usually I carry a conventional “back-pack” style camera bag with either a little or a lot of kit in it. On my chest I carry a smaller Ruc-sac full of rigging gear, harness etc, as well as a rope. I haven’t seen my feet on a walk-in in years! The point I’m trying to make is however much, or little camera gear I’m carrying, there’s still not enough room in the camera bag for all my other essentials – until I got my F-stop Tilopa BC.

As there "were" no shops in the UK selling the stuff I didn’t get the chance so carried on “making do” then just before Xmas I got and email from Druid Orion MD at F-stop telling me, well I’ll let Druid tell you “The trip (to the UK) and the people were so good in fact, that f-stop decided to setup an office to better service UK. I am happy to introduce Henry Iddon” Yep after spending some time here in the UK and sinking a few bevies with us Brits Druid decided to “up the anti”

A couple of days later Henry emailed me and after a few back and fourth’s we arranged to meet at the Outdoor Show in January, where F-stop would be exhibiting, which meant I could get my sticky little mitts on their complete range – bring it on. When I arrived Henry introduced me to the guys at Paramo (an outdoor range of clothing) who were so inspired by the F-stop range that they now stock it in their Covent Garden shop - so if your old fashioned like me, go "try before you buy"

I was most interested in the Tilopa BC (Back Country) a 48L back pack style bag or as F-sop like to say “The Tilopa BC has everything you need to crossover from a gear intensive day shoot or a night in the backcountry. 48-liter capacity, added reinforcements and the ability to carry the tools of most any sport make this our all-‘rounder” So to cut a long story short, Henry and I met up at the show, I tried the pack of my dreams on, it seemed ideal for all my immediate needs, I bought one along with 3 ICU’s (small, med and large) and left for Italy almost immediately.

My trip to Cogne in the Aosta valley of Italy was going to predominantly consist of Ice climbing and some big back-country walking to get to the ice falls – for this trip I wasn’t going to need a huge amount of camera gear, in fact I was trying out a completely new system (to me) the Lumix GH1 and the incredible 7-14mm / f4, as well as the 14-140mm / f4-5.8. I was also packing a couple of Nikon SB800’s (which work in manual mode with this camera) and 3 pocket wizard triggers, as well as a couple of mini tripods, cleaning cloths and spare 16gig SD cards, all this fitted neatly into the small ICU which meant the rest of the space in the pack could be taken up with essentials like food, thin silk weight gloves, soft shell gloves, a knife and a spare hat (top pocket) an insulated down jacket, base layer, water, harness, Karabiners, tape slings and Crampons (inside the main compartment) as well as a spare waterproof (front pocket) On the outside I was able to fix my Grivel Ice axes to the front via a couple of Bungee loops (I’d really like to see a couple of integral tape loop’s specifically for attaching axes in the future, like the ones on climbing back packs) and to round things off, a 60m rope was easily strapped to the side via two straps. I could have carried more gear if I’d needed to!

Day one of the trip consisted of an easy walk-in, followed by climbing a 5 pitch, 250m Ice fall, O yeah and taking photo’s of course! The pack handled perfectly, just like I would have expected a climbing pack too.

I found it exceptionally comfortable to walk and climb in, and when I came to a hanging belay I just hooked it on to the belay via the handle on the backside and still had access to the inside and my cameras.

Over the last few days I’ve worked in all kinds of scenarios, from deep powder to running water and my Tilopa BC has been just about as good as it could be. If I could find a fault and I’m really “nit picking” here, it would be the “chest strap” is too small for anyone with a large chest (I’m 46inches and its pretty tight in just a T-shirt, add in various layers of winter clothing and a Down jacket and its just about impossible to fasten – Just add another couple of inches guys and it would make it my dream pack – Go F-stop (F for Fantasy)

I’ll put up a more technical review of the pack when I get back to the UK in a couple of weeks and in the meantime if you want to have a look for yourself you can at F-stops website here.

While we were checking in to our Hotel in Lillaz a poster on the wall caught my eye, Dog Sledding. The date was for the following saturday and the venue was right here in town about 200m's away, so this time there was absolutely no way I was going to miss it and walking back from climbing on the Friday past the field where the dogs were arriving just re-enforced how I felt.

For me the only slightly disappointing thing was the fact that I'd only brought a limited array of camera gear with me, mainly wide angles and short telephoto zooms, all the "Big guns" the 200mm f/2's, the 300mm f/2.8's were back at home neatly tidied away in boxes and to throw out of focus the messy backgrounds that lay all around the course they were the lenses I would have ideally brought with me, ah well I wasn't going to complain too much all things considered, just go with the flow and make the best of what I had with me, in fact looking on the bright side for once I didn't have to worry too much about lugging a huge bacp-pack about, or book a physio appointment for when I got back!

The following morning was perfect conditions for the event (not perfect conditions for tomorrows ice climbing) Sunshine and Blue skies smiled down on the competitors. After breakfast I headed over and milled around with all the other spectators, I didn't need any kind of press accreditation to access "alll areas" which was very refreshing. I concentrated on shooting the dogs (pardon the pun) and all the paraphinalia that goes into racing, the Sled itself, the harnesses, the leashes, and at the same time trying to familiarise myself with just "How" things work, until finally it was time for some action, first up where the larger teams of dogs, the biggest are 10 dogs strong.

The smallest teams are 2 dogs strong, although there is a catorgory for just one dog, but they don't pull a Sled, they attach to a waist harness and pull along a person on ski's. It took a bit of working out just where to shoot from, so for the first 30mins went for the easy option and just walked up the hill 400m from the start and positioned myself next to the first righthand bend. After shooting with one of the short tele zooms I soon realised I couldn't throw the cluttered background out of focus with the  f5.6 maximumn aperture of my lens, time for a change. I quite liked the position I was in so I opted to change the lens for a very wide 14mm-24mm f/2.8 and poke it through the mesh and fire away as the dogs come past 12 inches away, I really hoped these guys could drive otherwise I would end up with one big headache.

As the day wore on I moved around and changed my position, trying to shoot different angles and perspectives, some worked and some frustratingly didn't, you can't win em all I guess. Long after the racing had finished I carried on wandering around taking more photos of the dogs, the dogs resting, the dogs being fed, the dogs doing things that dogs do. Tomorrow is another race day in Lillaz, unfortunately I'm off Ice climbing so I won't get my Canine fix, but to be honest I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time, for once. I'm hooked I'm already reserching where I can see our four legged friends again. I'll leave you with the star's of the show, a couple of pooches and a shot of Lillaz, hope you enjoy them and until next time, CHOW.

Here's a grab shot of Lucy (Creamer) leading up the second pitch with the beautiful Cogne valley in the background. The forecast for tomorrow isn't looking so great but we"ll see and make the call where and when in the morning. Sleep well, I hope I will.

It’s nice to help out someone when you can, even a snotty nosed little kid who used to take great delight “power slamming” onto me from the age of about 5. Yep little Oli Edwards introduced himself by way of leaping off the end of the bed onto my sleeping form and as fate would have it landing right on top of the old crown jewels. I was speechless, breathless and felt decidedly sick – a big impression from such a little guy!

Fast forward 11 years and Little Oli has grown into the kind of cool dude other kids hate ( I hated kids like Oli when I was a kid) and to add insult to injury (O there were lots of injuries) he plays the drums. Now when I say he plays the drums I don’t just mean he bangs around a bit, I mean he plays the things like Ginger Baker, Ian Pace or Jon Bonham, you know what I’m saying, he’s good, f_cking good, so it came as no surprise to learn he was asked by an industry “Big Wig” if he had a “show reel”

You know the sort of thing, a short film of Oli and his drumming, unfortunately he didn’t, well he had a film of a recent gig he’d done but to be honest it didn’t show off his talents as best it could. “It didn’t have to be anything special” the guy had said  “just get your mum to take a few photos & a video on her iPhone” Problem was “Mum” didn’t have an iPhone! She told her sister Lucy, my partner, who offered to drive down to Bristol iPhone in hand to shoot a portrait, three-quarter and full length pics as well as well as a short video of him drumming away during a practice session. Evidently the record company needed a drummer to be part of a band they were putting together to back a young and very talented lad they’d recently signed, so this could be Oli’s big break if everything went well. If the photos and video showed the exec that Oli not only looked the part but could actually drum as well!

I thought for a moment of all those times he came crashing down on me, revenge is sweet or so they say, “Tell Oli I’ll take the photos for him” I yelled across the room “and I know just the man to shoot his video”

So all that was needed was for Ali (Oli’s mum) to load up her Van with the drum kit and drive up to Sheffield where the studio is, hey presto the following Saturday we’re all at the studio watching Oli set his kit up. After a little tuning and tweaking it’s enter stage left Ian Burton, the aforementioned cameraman who, when he’s not busy working for the BBC, ITV or Channel 4, he can be found instructing would be filmmakers how to shoot in 3D for Sony. He even brought along a small prototype rig and filmed the whole thing in 3D as well as more conventional formats, how cool is that, you’re very own 3D film.

So once the big guns had finished it was my turn to shoot a couple of set-ups both in and out of the studio. Essentially, all we were looking for was a head and shoulders, three quarter and full length body shots. I took a couple of full length in the studio with Oli sitting at and on his kit, I wanted a slightly dark, moody type of theme so opted not to use background lights and let the white turn to a more sombre grey. I back lit Ol's with a couple of small soft boxes with grids and chose a ring flash as my front light (see above) then it was time to move outside and take advantage of some funky doors and brickwork just down the road from the studio, I love texture and really wanted to include it in these shots. Both the portraits shown here were taken with a single Elinchrom Ringflash powered by a Quadra pack I like the muted colours of the old steel gate with the greys and blues of the clothes.

At one point I looked round and as I was busy snapping away at Oli, his mum was taking photos of me taking photos. Lucy, Ali's sister and Sue, Ali's mum (Oli's grandmother) were all happily snapping away too!

By the time you read this the photos and Video should have been sent through to the people who need them, hopefully they'll like Oli and his drumming, fingers crossed - watch this space

I'd been looking forward to Christmas for quite a while. To put it simply I was knackered. All I wanted to do was spend some quality time with my partner Lucy, kick back, put my feet up, watch some crap telly and when my feet weren’t up take my dogs out for walks. To insure we didn't get distracted from relaxing, we'd booked a cottage up in Belford, Northumberland - for those of you who don't know where Northumberland is it's up on the north east coast of England, sandwiched in between Newcastle and Berwick upon Tweed. It's one, if not the least populated area In England and has, for me at least some of the best beaches you'll find anywhere.

As you've probably worked out I'm a huge fan of "The County" as its affectionately known, as is Lucy who once worked as an outdoor instructor teaching climbing and kayaking there. The company she worked for was based in Belford, next door but one to Lily Cottage our home for Christmas. We'd stayed at the cottage before, so we knew it had everything we needed and more importantly it's Dog friendly.

Another of the "selling points" Lily Cottage has to offer, at least for us, is the fact its only a 2 minute drive from Bowden, one of the best climbing crags Northumberland has to offer (there are quite a few within an hours drive) in fact add another 30 seconds and you could be climbing at Back Bowden just over the hill, or a 10 minute drive will take you to Kyloe in the woods another fabulous spot, known more for its bouldering perhaps than its lead climbing.

The weather over the Christmas period was predominantly dry, no snow which was a shame, quite windy and ridiculously warm for the time of year, in fact if the wind had dropped I'm sure I could have gone about my business wearing just a long sleeve thermal, as it was I just threw a windproof over the top and I was almost sweating!

The evenings sat in the garden under huge skies were crystal clear and only a few degrees colder than the day. The days were a mixture of hill walks and my personal favourite; beach walks along the never-ending beaches of Beadnell, Bamburgh, Seahouses and The Holy Island.

On the last day of the trip I finally took my camera out of its bag where I'd deliberately left it. We went up to Bowden to boulder and solo around on some easier routes and predictably as soon as I reached for it the beautiful day became 100% overcast, ah well. We climbed a bit more but in the back of my mind I had a photo plan and as luck would have it (or was it good planning) when the sun finally peeped its head out from behind the clouds I was ready for it - Grab Lucy, get her to climb Russett Groove an easy but classic line wearing a bright top, shoot virtually straight into the sun exposing for the clouds, fire one SB900 at full power zoomed to the max 200mm setting and off camera straight at Lucy, change the body position a few times, sun goes back in, result one cool shot.

Northumberland + Lily Cottage + Lucy + Great Weather = One relaxing Time.

2011 has come and gone, I had a pretty good year, foreign trips interspersed with local and national jaunts to some great events and fabulous locations. Book, magazine and brochure shoots and a re-build of my website, but for me there was only one highlight. A highlight weighing in at around 40kg’s, brindle in color, solid in stature and suffering from separation anxiety syndrome arising from being tied to a tree in a wood and abandoned.

Yes for me, my highlight of 2011 was adopting another Dog. Buis, as we named her, is a Mastiff cross. We’re not actually sure what she’s crossed with but it doesn’t matter to us, perhaps she has a bit of Boxer, perhaps a little Staffy or some have even hinted Pit-bull, who knows, who cares.

How we came about adopting another dog two days after finding a home for a dog we had fostered is still slightly puzzling but I like to lay the blame at my partner Lucy’s feet as it was on her insistence that I visited the pound to look at this “very special dog” and she was special (aren’t they all) it only took one visit to convince me to change all my exciting plans for the upcoming few years and take on a dog with “Issues” I’m not going to bore you all with the details but I’m very happy to report that just over 11 months have gone by since we were lucky enough to adopt our big girl. She’s settled in to home life wonderfully, has her own passport and been on a few foreign trips to Europe and even taken part in a couple of photo-shoots. Our other beloved dog Kodo loves her new found sister and has learnt to successfully “side step” her way out of trouble as Buis comes thundering past at 20mph (she ran into me in July and I’m still having physio on my knee)

Of course other stuff happened during the year, but, that’s another story and to be honest it all rather pales into insignificance alongside Buis (named after a small town in Provence where we once lived) so for me 2011 really was all about “the year of the dog”

My favourite lens would have to be… hmmm maybe not, perhaps it’s the… or at least it was? That would be a toughie! But to name my favourite lens right here, right now, today, would be very easy. That would be my Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G AF-S. It’s not a new lens to the market place or indeed even to my own camera bag, but it’s the lens I’m most enjoying using at the moment.

The 50mm f/1.4 has been around in one guise or another since Nikon invented it in 1950. I’ve actually carried the latest incarnation around since it was launched back in 2008, but for some strange inexplicable reason, I’ve rarely used it. I carried it mainly for those low light situations when my f2.8 zooms are going to struggle, but I don’t seem to have needed it, managing mostly by introducing off camera flash; that is until last Friday!

I was due to shoot an editorial piece for one of the outdoor magazines, a piece on bouldering and would need enough photos to cover 4 – 6 pages.

The lower Churnet valley comprises of a collection of Sandstone crags lying along the banks of the river Churnet, between the small picturesque villages of Oakamoor and Alton.

The area is probably best known to the masses for being home to the first “Theme park” in the UK, the aptly named Alton Towers or as one local shopkeeper put it “Vomit Towers” however I think he was referring to the stomach churning quality of the rides and not the overall ambience of the situation and character which tends to be pretty and varied, being amongst the pastoral farmland, wooded hillsides or rhododendron jewelled river-banks.

Whenever I visit or re-visit a climbing area I try and ask myself “what’s special about this place? What sets it apart, is there one thing which somehow really captures the essence of the climbing in the area?” The lower Churnet is a highly popular and respected area with boulderers offering a unique and fingery style of climbing on very unusual rock. Or to sum it up in just one word -  “pebbles” Yep you read that correctly, the kind of pebbles you find on a beach, except in the case of the Churnet the pebbles are embedded into the rock face and used as hand and foot holds by the climber.

As luck would have it we had a good and fairly diverse group of climbers out for the day, which somehow compensated for the fact it was raining and a lot of the rock was wet. This played a limiting factor in what we could and couldn’t climb and obviously had a direct impact on what I could photograph, probably the deciding factor in why I picked up the 50mm out of my bag that day.

It became obvious from the onset of the rain that I would need to crop fairly tight in for a lot of the shots, concentrate more on climber and “the move” and less on the environment. After much deliberation I opted for one of the final moves on the extended version of a problem called “The Long Traverse” a close-up of a pebble with the climber reaching for it using a very shallow DOF, around f2 – bokehlichious!

The Second shot I’ve included here is a composite image which hopefully illustrates six of the moves during the central section of the previously mentioned traverse, which ends with the pebble move described above – I think the combo works well, what do you think?