Chiz Dakin, Award-winning Outdoors Photographer and Guidebook Writer
Chiz Dakin is an award-winning photographer, specialising in outdoors photography. This involves just a little bit of travelling in her quest for stunning outdoors photos… And if it has a mountain or three, or some amazing coastline, then either she’s been there and got some stunning images, or it’s on her hit list of places to go to. However, particular regions she specialises in include:
- Derbyshire and the Peak District
- mountains and coasts of the UK
- Spanish Sierra Nevada (a mountainous/hilly part of Andalucia, including the Alpujarras)
- Australia’s North and West (and Brisbane)
- Madeira
- Antarctica (from the Drake Passage to the NZ peri-Antarctic islands (Campbell and Enderby)
and additional regions she has visited recently include:
- New Zealand (North and South Island)
- South America (Argentina/Brazil/Chile/Falkland Isles)
- India’s Ladakh (trekking, culminating in a successful ascent of Stok Kangri, 6100+m)
- Switzerland’s Saas Valley (ski-touring)
- Alpine Chamonix
- Finland (skiing and a rail journey north to south)
- Central America (Guatemala to Costa Rica)
Chiz is a member of the Outdoor Writers and Photographers Guild (OWPG) (she is a recent award-winner of their Award For Excellence in Outdoor Photography), and Writers and Photographers unlimited. She is also a member of the creative community at Banks Mill in Derby.
Recent commissions have included photographing the Madeira Isles Walking Festival for the second year running, and taking images of some of Parámo’s excellent range of outdoors clothing, in use in places as diverse as Welsh Ice Climbs, scorching Spanish Sierra Nevada trails, Himalayan treks and New Zealand tramps. (And her images of the first Madeiran Walking Festival won her the 2008-9 Outdoor Writers and Photographer’s Guild (OWPG) Award for Excellence in Photography – no mean feat given the calibre of other members of the guild!)
Her latest photographic venture is tuition – running photographic workshops in the awesome location of the Spanish Sierra Nevada (that’s the original Sierra Nevada y’know!) in conjunction with the leading trekking company in the region. This place has it all – whitewashed villages, legendary Andalucian evening light, and a choice of locations from rolling Alpujarran hills to icy high mountains, and from desert-scapes to ancient castles. And better than that it’s affordable – only an hour inland from the Costas, it’s a world away from the beach-scene, yet still close enough to Malaga and Granada airports for budget flights.
As well as being an award-winning photographer, Chiz is also a guidebook writer. She has spent part of 2009 writing a pocket-sized, wallet-friendly walking guidebook to the White Peak (southern part of the Peak District) and is currently writing the companion volume to the Dark Peak (northern part of the Peak District). 2010 sees her writing a cycling guidebook to the Peak District for a major publisher and future projects include an Australian photo-book (based on her 2008 epic tour of the north and west) and a Sierra Nevada photo book.
Her photo galleries have just undergone a big change with this new site, and are now found under Image Galleries on the far right of the menu bar at the top of every page. One day she will understand the technology sufficiently to be able to integrate e-commerce with them…!
Follow Chiz on Twitter: peakimages, facebook: Chiz Dakin and Peak Images and LinkedIn: ChizDakin
