Cortijada Los Gazquez - Vida en 1000m. Parque Natural Sierra Maria Los Velez. Andalucia.

Should you be needing a quick break we still have great photographic opportunities here  as it’s a dramatic time of the year and it will give you great results. And if you can jump on a plane at the drop of a hat we will give you a 15% discount too. Contact Simon at [email protected]

This was day 14 of our trek across Zanskar. These are our pack animals silhouetted against the Tsarap River below. The trek is so long and high that it’s nearly impossible to complete whilst carrying your own provisions on your back. There are no handy little gas bottles up here, it’s kerosene and a large burner and a pressure cooker to throw everything in.

We had to hire  mules, one each and one for the mule man. But then he was travelling back to the Kulu Valley for the potato harvest with his friend Krishnan (along with his mules). In the end it appeared as if we were part of a nine strong mule train picking across the narrow paths high in the Himalaya.

… and for those sceptics who might suggest I have altered the values on this image in Photoshop I will vigorously deny any such accusation. I did use Photoshop but only to re-size the image for this blog.

These are some of the best months for photography in Andalucía as the lower sun on the horizon can create some fantastic atmospheric effects.

Zanskari landscapes from 1997. This time we are approaching Sengge La 5000m. The extreme contrast of light and dark is caused by huge cumulus nimbus clouds. At this altitude in the thin air with the very high levels of ultra violet and such a vast landscape the contrast is much more pronounced. It’s a great spot for landscape photography as it’s so painterly.

That night we camped close to Lingshed and the Gelukpa gompa. The next morning we observed the monks at prayer and drank yak butter tea. Mmmm (not).

We’ve been tidying up the office and came upon our old slides of India. I love digital photography but I do miss a good roll of Fuji Velvia. This young novice monk lived in Lamayuru monastery in Ladakh. Ladakh is ‘little Tibet’ in the far north east corner of Jammu and Kashmir and is more or less totally Buddhist.

Lamayuru was the starting point of our epic twenty one day trek from Ladakh, across Zanskar and into the Kulu Valley. We were  really fit then doing ten passes over 5000m in the first nine days. Below is a village called Photksar. The landscape is so huge here photographs create a misleading perception of scale. This could be a close up until you  notice the little houses…