Exploring the Italian Dolomites and Iceland
18th January 2022
This Season Norwich & District Photographic Society has joined forces with Old Coulsdon Camera Club in South London to jointly present outstanding photo-talks by inspirational photographers from around the world. This evening more than 60 people 'Zoomed in' for a breath-taking tour of The Dolomite mountains of Northern Italy and also Iceland.
James Rushforth is a full time professional photographer, he began 12 years ago with his first camera, and he has managed to find a niche in the landscape market; climbing, ski mountaineering and mountain guide books. And what exciting pictures he showed us, even those pictures he took with his first camera were great. He explained that his technique improved over time, not just composition but in post processing also.
There were names to conjure with peppered throughout this presentation, the Tre Cima, Marmolada and the via ferrate, grades one to five! These are all big excursions in the world of climbing but James went on to discuss winter ice climbing on ice falls, the difficulties of good camera work in the winter and ski mountaineering or ski climbing! These were all photographs to set your heart racing, views of ski routes down very, very narrow couloirs and his final 'silly sport' - slacklining. Four hundred meters in the air and walking on a piece of one inch wide webbing. He said it looks terrifying but in fact it's not! Well each to his own, I'll leave it to James.
But it wasn't all mountains in the Dolomites, he had lovely pictures of a dragonfly, a lady's slipper orchid and some enchanting night photography including a shot of the galactic core over the Tre Cima.
After the break we went to Iceland where James ran wild photography courses and produced another book, this time Iceland. He had pictures of sailing ships with icebergs and pictures of his own live-in Fiat long wheelbase van. Not all easy living when the weather confined you to the back of the van for several days!
Nevertheless, he displayed lots of landscape pictures of Iceland plus several pictures of arctic foxes, reindeer, and arctic terns. Not only that he found an abandoned herring factory which proved very photogenic.
He talked of the 'lunar' landscape, geothermal vents and the northern lights and brought his presentation to an end by describing his drone photography and showing us his complete kit and equipment.
An excellent photographer and some quite amazing images. We are indebted to both James and Old Coulsdon for hosting a riveting evening.
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