I have loved outdoor activities since being a young child running around on my grandparent’s farm near Bombala in southern New South Wales, Australia. Backcountry skiing, bushwalking, trekking, tramping, mountain bike riding, kayaking and scrambling are some of my favourite activities. I have found the combination of fresh air with exercise, ever-changing scenery, wildlife encounters, absence of everyday pressures, experiencing what the weather can “offer” and stimulating company both invigorates and recharges my being.
I have also had a lifelong interest in photography – owning and using film cameras ranging from compacts to professional SLRs, medium format cameras and a beautiful Tachihara 4”x5″ wooden field camera. To accommodate this interest over time I have built six darkrooms and worked as a part-time wedding photographer, doing all my own film and print processing in-house for over 25 years.
Over time this progressed to using a variety of film and print scanners to digitize the best of my past film-based photos. Then I moved into digital SLRs, firstly the Canon EOS 20D around 2005, then a 5D Mark III, 5D MarkIV and currently an R5.
Back in late 2014 when I “crossed to the other side” moving into the Apple ecosystem, I found my productivity soaring. Today most of my editing is done in Adobe Lightroom Classic, along with some visits to Topaz Photo AI, Liminar Neo and Photoshop.
Perhaps, not surprisingly, when I travel “off the beaten track” and have a big DSLR camera set up on a tripod people occasionally ask if they could see some of my photos. So the planets now align – a passion for the great outdoors and photography together with the right tools mean I am now in a good position to start sharing my experiences and photos with anyone who might be interested.
A detailed, searchable trip list with links to reports, photo galleries and other content
Hi Stephen,
I walked up to Tsum Valley in May 2018 and would like to ask you if I could use one or two of your photographs for a non-commercial presentation that I will be doing on Tsum Valley.
Regards,
Lobsang
Hi Lobsang,
I have no problem with you using a couple of photos so long as there is appropriate acknowledge for each of them and a link back to this post is provided amongst your references. Good luck with the presentation.
Hi Stephen.
Tony Murphy here. We’ve met a couple of times at the Nordic Ski Club Charlotte Pass week.
Hey I saw your name in the Pretty Plain hut book, in the context of skiing from Grey Mare hut. I’ve read your post on the trip. Any thoughts of the possibility of walking between Grey Mare and Pretty Plain? We gave up on the idea because of the scrub and headed north to Hell Hole Creek FT and round to Derschko’s hut.
Cheers,
Tony
Hi Tony
I haven’t walked the area in a long time but did expect the route I skied would very scrubby once all the snow was gone. There was a lot of stuff poking out of the snow then. The guy who’s route I followed I met at Grey Mare Hut as he had just come up from Pretty Plain the previous day. He indicated it had taken him a number of years of exploration to work his was between the two.
Cheers,
Steve