This site displays landscape photographs taken by me as an amateur whilst I was on walking or trekking holidays in Australia, New Zealand, Nepal, Peru, Europe, Western USA and Canada. All images on this site were scanned from Kodachrome slides and are presented as slideshows.

My name is Wadim Bartels and I live with my wife Dorothy in Brisbane, Australia.

I was 20 years old when I joined a walking club in 1955 in Brisbane, Australia. The joy and excitement of seeing new places and beautiful views on my club walks made me want to capture what I had seen, albeit only so briefly, so that I could afterwards relive the enjoyment I experienced, time and time again.

Thus, a few months after joining the club, I splurged 12% of what was then my annual income on the purchase of my first camera - a 35 mm Voigtländer Prominent with a 50 mm f/2 Ultron lens.

After studying the instruction book one weekend I was ready to take my first photograph the next time I went walking. When I looked at my first set of 3" x 2" black-and-white and rather dull photos, I was disappointed. The large, colourful scenes I remembered just were not there.

After taking only a couple of black-and-white films I began using Kodachrome 10 since colour positive film was the only colour film readily available at that time. Having started to take slides forced me to purchase a Weston Master II exposure meter, a light tripod (which I very seldom used and carried) and an Aldis 300 watt projector. Seeing slides, projected on to some white surface, as colourful 2'6" x 4' images, was a sheer delight.

Listening to constructive criticisms by judges at the club's photographic competitions confirmed my earlier suspicion that there is more to photography than just pointing the camera at a pretty scene and pressing the shutter release. That something "more" I have attempted to find ever since but have never fully succeeded.

I enjoyed the challenge of recording scenes which appeared as I walked - whatever the conditions at the time. I also enjoyed, as I still do, reliving my travels whilst I sorted, weeded and eventually viewed my collection of photographic memories.

All my Kodachrome slides (starting from mid 1955) are still as good today as they were at the time they were taken. Unfortunately slides I took in the early and mid 1960's using Ektachrome have lost their colour and turned into a washed out sepia image; slides taken using Perutz were also affected but to a lesser degree. However, I purchased from Applied Science Fiction, Inc. a Digital ROC Plug-in for my Adobe Photoshop Elements software which enables me to restore the images to nearly their original colour. Without this Plug-in, my discoloured slides would have been fit only for the rubbish bin.

I married in 1961 and fortunately my wife brought into the marriage, amongst other things, a glass beaded roller screen on a fold down stand. Now I could really enjoy my slides - we even looked at her slides occasionally. Soon after, we had four children in less than three years and my trips and photography virtually ended. After laying idle for a couple of years my camera seized up.

Then, one day early in 1985, one of my friends asked: "Why don't we go to Nepal?". I agreed and also persuaded another friend to come with us. This was all very exciting, going with a group of friends to a country I had often fantasised about visiting, and going on my first overseas trip since coming to Australia in 1949.

Of course my interest in photography was revived and I bought my second camera which I still use. It is a 35 mm Canon T70 body with a Canon FD 35 -105mm f/3.5 - 4.5 zoom lens. After that trip to Nepal I purchased two additional Canon FD lenses: a 100 - 300mm f/5.6 zoom and a 24mm f/2.8 wide angle and although I don't use them often, they give me excellent results when they are needed.

My wife came with me on all subsequent trips that were also mainly group walking trips. Whilst she takes prints with her Olympus Superzoom 38 -110mm compact camera, I take slides using Kodachrome 64 or 200.

Both of us derive considerable enjoyment from not only going on these group walks but also from reviving our memories of them by occasionally looking at our photos. So far we have walked in:

• Australia
• New Zealand
• Nepal (my second time)
• Peru
• Europe
• West Coast of USA
• Canadian Rockies

And I hope we will be adding to this list.

Needless to say I have many thousands of slides and in 2002 have started putting them on to CDs. I have purchased an Epson Perfection 2450 Photo flat bed scanner and have started scanning slides I took in the mid 1950's. I am very pleased with the results I get from the scanner. The task of scanning most of my slides will take a long time; even more so if my wife insists that I also scan our wedding photos and numerous pictures of our children and their children.

July, 2002