Just click on a thumbail image to see the bigger picture

The trip consisted of two major parts:
1) A week-long walk along part of the trans-Pyrenean route known as the Camino de Santiago followed by a
2) A week-long 'hands-o n' course in DSLR photography - getting the best out of my Canon 350d camera - to create high quality images of landscapes, birds, butterflies, other invertebrates etc.
3) As a bonus, since our location was essentially free from light pollution - to take some time to image the Milky Way galaxy using my trusty Canon 350d.
The trip started of in Zaragoza where we were collected by our local guide Richard.
We arrived at our base for the holiday - Casa Sarasa - at around midnight.
Over the following days our small group - Richard, myself and two bird-lovers, vetured into the nearby Natural Park, 50 to 100 Kilometers away from our 'Home' in the village of Berdun.
We visited a number of the sections of the Camino de Santiago, taking in wonderful vistas across the flat lands of the Aragon region of Spain.
We saw so many different birds - I think that I lost count - that our cameras soon filled up with images of Alpine Choughs, Crossbills, Raptors - Peregrin Falcons, Buzzards, Snake and Booted Eagles, Vultures and Lamageiers - as well as the more common birds such as Alpine Tits, Blackbirds and Greenfinches.
We also saw countless species of butterflies, insects and wildflowers.
 
The week had to end, and I said my goodbyes to my fellow travellers - only to meet up with a new group for the Photography Course.

With Richard still on tow as tour guide we were joined by a group of nature-spotters from the UK, and our tutor/mentor for the Photography Course - Sergio Padura - who lives in a village about 30Km away from Berdun.
Each day of the course followed a similar route:
1) A bit of classroom explaination of the aims of the day
2) A trip out to a local valley or gorge to take some shots with the information we had been given - to practice our new skills
3) We then had some semi-free time to try our skills out to take some 'real images' - under the guidance of Sergio - with Richard looking on with interest he also was practicing his newly aquired skills.
4) When we got back to base we then reviewed everyone's images [thankfully not all of them :>)], to see if we had got the hang of the new techniques.
We covered:
a) Framing the shot
b) Effects of natural lighting and changes in the lighting
c) Placement of key features within the frame - such as trees, bright/dark objects or areas
d) How to photograph flowers and wildlife 'close-up'
e) How to change shutter speed to creat artistic effects - especially with flowing water or fast action activities such as bull-running [we had a trip to Anso to see that]
f) Chaging 'white balance' setting on the camera, to see what effect the actual lighting had on a shot

At the end of the day, we had a hearty meal back at the Casa and settled in to relax - but not me!

I picked up my astronomy gear and set my camera on manual for a nights observing and imaging.
I had taken with me an AstroTrak driven camera mount - which arounsed some curiosity from Sergio.

So, on a number of nights I venturted out about 0.5Km from the village centre, set up the AstroTrak and started imaging the Milky Way in 'wide angle' shots of the main constellations of Sagittarius, Cygnus, Cassiopeia and Andromeda.

You can see the results of the day-time photography on this page.

Below are a few of my night-time shots.
More details about the Astrophotographs are listed on the Astronomy section of my website

Enjoy