Posts from July 2008

  • After a good night’s sleep in Reims, we headed onward towards our appointment with the cross-Channel tunnel at a rate of knots, passing through the first toll booth of the day as we headed on through northern France towards Calais. We made pretty good time as the roads were exceptionally clear – by our experience,…

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  • So this is what it feels like to be on a last day at work. Not much different from any day over the past few weeks, as I began winding down some time ago and I completed all the clearing out of desks, drawers and files last week. Today, it’s just finishing up bits and…

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  • This is a rapidly conceived and executed shot, as a big storm headed in from the Simmen valley from western Switzerland. I saw the distant clouds being illuminated by lightning (which accounts for the varied colouring in the clouds) so I grabbed a tripod and framed my shot from our living room window, setting exposure…

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  • I had an interesting chat with a friend of Nick‘s on Saturday evening, which brewed into quite a heated discussion about the perennial photographic question of what makes a successful picture. Clive questioned my point of view that I am able to achieve perhaps five or more good photographic images out of every 100 taken…

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  • This Lladró statue, designed by Francisco Català, was a gift from my parents and fits well with my photographic tendencies. It is also a great test piece for studio photography, so when I was looking to test flash technique this evening (in particular, soft lighting) it was immediately brought out. The statue is around 13″…

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  • Learning a lot, a little at a time

    This is a short (ten minute) outtake from David Hobby‘s workshop DVD set, which is on sale for US$139. The price seems steep for “just” a DVD, but reconsider: what you’re actually getting isn’t just a film, but an in-depth tutorial over eight DVDs (over ten hours of content) which has the potential to seriously…

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  • I love travelling back and forth between Britain and Switzerland. Although it’s a long way, the journey is made pretty easy by the fact that most of the long haul is through France, where undulating countryside and unfamiliar landscape provides a level of interest and flat, straight, empty motorways make a journey with cruise control…

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  • I’ve decided to blog about our wedding and honeymoon trip from Switzerland to Scotland and back again and this is the first entry.

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  • If you’re a Flash or web developer, then you may come across a security-invoked problem whereby links inside your Flash movie don’t react, when you try and open a link within the current browser window. Crazy, I know, but bear with me. I have no idea why this should be so – I’m sure someone…

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  • I’ll be photographing a band in Bern at the end of next week with a couple of friends and so Jo and I headed to Bern last weekend to scout out some locations. We headed for the lower, older part of the city below Kornhausplatz and wandered down through Rathausgasse, stopping off at St. Peter…

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  • This is the seat of the Swiss reformist catholic church in Switzerland, formed in 1871. The cathedral is comparatively modern, having been built next to the city hall between 1858 and 1864, and was the result of an international design competition, won by a group of architects including Frenchman Pierre Joseph Edouard Deperthes, the architect…

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  • A visit to the ruined city of Pompeii is primarily about history, destruction and death. But there is a great deal of life there too; not just the tourists in abundance, but also a wide range of gardens and plants which have flourished amongst the dusty courtyards and cobbled streets. Beautiful hedges, flowers and trees…

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  • In a day less than two weeks, I shall be leaving this office for the last time.

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  • I received a letter from my new employer today, detailing the first weeks of my employment and lots of interesting sessions they have planned, from “getting to know you” time in the office in Bern to “an hour with the CEO” at the Zürich office. Starting on my first day, I have meetings and sessions…

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  • By my reckoning, I have made the journey between Brienz and Spiez nearly three and a half thousand times in the past seven and a half years: a phenomenal number of trips backwards and forward for a person who used to long to abandon the car and travel in relaxing comfort on public transport. Back…

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  • Jo makes her way interestedly around one of the few semi-intact rooms in the ancient ruined city of Pompeii.

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  • The editors are currently voting amongst the range of wonderful pictures you’ve submitted for issue 3 of Swiss Peeks, which will be entitled “Reflecting in Switzerland”. We’re pleased to be able to announce the theme for the following issue 4 as “Multicultural Switzerland“. The theme descriptions in English, German and French are now online.

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  • Are you interested in and knowledgeable about Strobism? Do you write fluent French? Can you write well and are you interested in helping other photographers based in Switzerland to learn how to improve their technique and extend their knowledge? Can you spare a little free time each week to write for a new blog about…

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  • One of those perfect moments, when time seems to slow down and the photograph almost takes itself. A photographer taking a picture – “shooting” – a sleeping stray dog through anti-dust netting in Pompeii.

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  • The Autofriedhof (car cemetery) is an extraordinary collection of rotting cars, dumped by a spare parts salesman on land behind his workshops since the 1930s in Kaufdorf, between Thun and Bern. The cars, in varying stages of decomposition, have remained untouched since they were abandoned in the woods and are now mainly collapsed hulks. The…

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  • I am inspired once more to pull my finger out and start putting photographic books together. One of them will be a series of shots of the Niesen, which I see as this view every day from our sitting room window.

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