Conor and I were halfway through our (first) trip to Iceland earlier this year (yep we’re going again in June, it’s that good) when we found ourselves just outside the town of Vik on the south coast, with GPS coords of this particular location kindly supplied by Michael Murphy.

The wreckage is about 2km from the road and seeing that the volcanic sand was pretty soft, we didn’t want to risk taking our van across, not being a 4×4. The walk actually took quite a while! It doesn’t help that you can’t see the plane until you’re pretty much right next to it so there’s nothing to aim for except for the point on the GPS unit.

Amanda and I are huge fans of Walk Off the Earth (WOTE), particularly well known for their Youtube videos, a mix of covers with very unique twists and their own original material.

We were super excited when we noticed that they’d be in NYC at the same time that I would be there visiting Amanda so we snapped up a pair of tickets and the band were kind enough to grant me a photo pass for the show.

What can I say, I’ve been to dozens of gigs and this was without a doubt one of the best – their energy on stage matched with some fine choreography and production (even more impressive for what I imagine is a rather limited budget) just blew us away. I’d highly recommend checking them out when next on tour!

Back in August 2012 I was part of a team of 4 on an exploratory expedition to the Altai mountains in Southern Siberia. The Altai are rarely visited by Westerners and our goal, funded and supported in part by the generosity of the BMC, Alpine Club, MEF, Berghaus, Buffwear and Alpkit, was to put up some British first ascents and report back on the area to facilitate future trips.

This photo was taken as we were packing up our gear at around 3am, having slept out in the open part way up the slopes of Dzhaniktu (the second highest peak in the area, just visible to the top left) our headtorches cutting trails through the air with the Milky Way visible above. Not having my tripod with me on this particular day (we were trying to travel as light as possible, considering that we were carrying all of our bivvy gear alongside the usual climbing gear) I placed the camera on a nearby rock and lined up the shot as best I could.

Conor MacNeill and I spent last week driving around Iceland, we rented a Kuku Campers van, chucked the cameras in the back & set off with no particular schedule.

Headed towards clear skies above the Snæfellsnes peninsula, we got lucky on our first night with the Aurora Borealis, a stunning display that lasted well over 5 hours. Needless to say we didn’t get much sleep that night (or any other night for that matter!).

The bright spot just left of centre I believe is Jupiter, whilst the star cluster slightly below and to the right is Pleiades.

Irbistu (meaning Snow Leopard) is the highest peak (3967m) in the South Chuysky range of the Russian Altai, Siberia. I was part of a team of 4 on a mountaineering expedition to the area in August 2012 (see http://thealtai.co.uk) during which we were able to summit Irbistu twice; from the south side as seen here and also via the north ridge. The Altai region is at the very centre of Asia and forms the area where the borders of China, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Russia meet – in this shot you can see the Chinese part of the Altai mountains in the far distance.

During the aforementioned trip to Barcelona, we paid a visit to the cathedral (La Sagrada Familia isn’t actually Barcelona’s cathedral) with its beautiful gothic interior.

As usual, the use of tripods was an issue. Conor was informed of this whilst shooting this frame, I was sat just a little further back making my tripod look more monopod like. The security guard then went through an archway on the left, assuming he would soon circle back we waited hoping to get more shots once he had left, but he never appeared. We quickly setup the tripods for another few shots before making our way through the same arch.

Turns out, there was an elevator through here taking visitors up onto the rooftop (which is being renovated), which we promptly took for some rather nice views of the city. Explains why he never re-appeared as we expected!

Back in September, Conor MacNeill and I decided that we hadn’t been on a photography trip for a while. Since the beginning of June in fact, when we came back from China. We wanted somewhere suitable for a quick weekend visit and decided on Barcelona, since Conor had never visited and I was based relatively nearby in Nice over the Summer months.

Having found a perfectly located (and very cheap) room via AirBnB, we set off for a long weekend of wandering the city, setting up tripods and eating muffins. Barcelona isn’t great for muffins, nowhere near as good as Bergen. Nor cheesecake; Tallinn was superb for cheesecake.

This shot was taken from our balcony, not a bad spot at all!

My girlfriend and I headed down to Texas over Thanksgiving to spend time with her family (she’s based in NYC). We took the opportunity to make a quick trip down to San Antonio and Austin.

I’d been meaning to go back to Austin for a while, having briefly visited in 2009 when running one of the Stackoverflow DevDays conferences for Joel Spolsky and having seen many of Trey Ratcliff’s shots from the area, decided to go and investigate the Pennybacker Bridge out towards Austin’s Hill Country. We were rewarded with a wonderful view of the setting sun and the trails of the passing traffic on the bridge below.

I’ll definitely be spending more time in Austin on future trips, it’s one of those rare (at least for me)* places that makes you think ‘I could actually live here for a while’.

* that’s not actually a negative thing! I love the majority of locations I visit but really don’t like to sit still – the thought of settling in most places just isn’t appealing.

This is the elevator shaft that takes visitors up to the top of the tower in Prague’s Old Town Hall, overlooking the square. It comes as quite a surprise – not what you’d expect when walking through the slightly dull interior of the hall leading up to this point! It’s really quite an intriguing blend of ultra modern metallic design and ancient stonework.

I was in Prague just before Christmas, and fortunately, just as the decorations were being put up. The view from the top was fantastic; the bustling market below, surrounding the lit up Christmas tree – photos to come!

The first photo in a long time! The past few months have been nothing short of crazy. I have a bunch of shots still to upload from China, Russia, Barcelona, the US (Austin & Dallas) and hopefully from Prague soon (am there on business right now).

Here’s one from a visit to Dallas’ Chinese Lantern exhibit in Fair Park. The stunning display was assembled over the period of a month and features a number of landmarks, such as Beijing’s Temple of Heaven and the Statue of Liberty (plus some pretty awesome illuminated pandas).