Posts from 2008

  • In Brienz

    I’ve been taking a rest from photography for a while, as I had become addicted to finding “the next photo” and it was taking over much of what I did. (Hence the lack of updates here at Permanent Tourist.) I’ve been able to get my fix at work over the past weeks, where I’ve been…

  • An unlikely entrance for a massive brick church, looming over narrow lanes in the heart of Milan, not far from Sforzesco castle. Work began on the church in 1400 AD, following nearly two hundred years of religious gatherings on the site. After parts of the building collapsed in 1449, repair work was untertaken and the…

  • Graffiti as art on the walls of a disused pub in Liverpool, photographed on a trip to visit Jo in November 2004 and now hanging as a photograph on our wall at home. The painting is by reknowned street artist Banksy, whose work has recently been reported in the British “Daily Mail” newspaper as having…

  • A photo which probably represents the end of Autumn.

  • An Inconvenient Truth

    I’m not usually one for political speaking or speakers who hold forth on environmental issues. Quite often, I find the subject boring or repetitive, the speaker uninteresting or the presentation so uninspiring, that it makes my brain shut off altogether. This evening, however, an hour and a half of Swiss channel SF2‘s evening programming was…

  • As part of the Burson-Marsteller Crossmedia team, I have been working closely with the organizers of the first SOMESSO Corporate Social Media Conference which is taking place in Rüschlikon on Friday this week.

  • Jo’s parents found baby hedgehogs in their garden for three Fridays in a row during September this year. The animals were late babies – too small to survive the winter – so Jo’s father Roy drove the 20-odd miles to take them to the Wormit Hedgehog Care Centre, across the River Tay from Dundee. Jo…

  • Kate’s Visit

    Loads of lovely photos online from when my friend Kate was visiting us in Switzerland.

  • My light in the darkness, who has more patience for my photographic madness than I could imagine in a thousand dreams.

  • Going through photos from our wedding and honeymoon trip last year, to compile a book from Blurb. So expect a few more ones you haven’t seen yet being added to this Flickr set.

  • Pfister faking it

    This poster is from a campaign for Swiss interior design company Pfister, the tag line of which states that the inner city of Bern is being re-vamped. What the poster specifically refers to isn’t 100% clear (at least, there appears to be no reference to the campaign online), it might be a clever (or unwitting)…

  • Cracking photo by my mum, of my dad, me and Jo on the Nufenenpass last weekend.

  • Into the light

    Edited directly on my k810i prior to upload. PhotoDJ has some pretty amazing image editing capabilities, considering it’s only on a mobile phone!

  • If you’re a regular visitor here at Permanent Tourist and you have an account at Facebook, please consider becoming a “fan” of my site: visit this page at Facebook and add yourself! I’d love to see how many of you visit regularly enough to associate yourselves with the site! (I will only see those details…

  • Budget airline easyJet have taken a step this year to kill two birds with one stone. By replacing their cloth head rest covers with temporary versions, they can avoid the tatty appearance caused by head rests becoming old and worn, whilst allowing prominent advertising space targeted to every passenger. Read more at the Burson-Marsteller Crossmedia…

  • The Switzerland-based photographic community book project “Swiss Peeks – Switzerland Through Your Eyes” was retired at the beginning of October 2008. The three issues published between 2007 and 2008 will remain available for purchase in the Blurb online bookstore, but will no longer be actively promoted by an editorial team. The Flickr group and website…

  • Dalguise Viaduct

    This grade A listed railway viaduct, just north of Dunkeld near the A9 main road between Perth and Inverness, was designed by Joseph Mitchell to carry the Inverness and Perth Junction Railway across the River Tay and opened on 9 September 1863 at a cost of £20,395; it remains in use. It is of lattice…

  • During a violent storm on the evening of 28 December 1879, the centre section of the first Tay Bridge, known as the “High Girders”, collapsed, taking with it a train that was running on its single track. Seventy-five lives were lost, including the son-in-law of design engineer Sir Thomas Bouch. The total number was only…

  • Security threat

    Not a great photo, but I’m posting it in order to wind up a security guard and highlight the photographic policy in the Wellgate shopping centre in Dundee. Moments after taking this, I was accosted and asked what I was doing. This photo is dangerous material, as I could’ve been taking this shot of the…

  • A Sun, Drowning

    As office workers and shop girls sway home from the city on the dusty local train, the sun reaches out orange tendrils of light. Plucking ineffectually at the clouds, trying desperately to gain purchase, it sinks inexorably in the rolling landscape before the clouds catch fire and shadow overwhelms its realm. The death is ferocious:…

  • Thanks so much to everyone who turned out yesterday on the ETH campus in Zürich, for a great afternoon’s photography, teaching and learning how to effectively use off-camera flash and achieve both dramatic and interesting portraits. A surprisingly and gratifyingly high number of photographers attended – almost 20 in the group, if I remember correctly…