Posts from 2011
When I look back at the photos I’ve posted to my Flickr photostream in 2011, I see how fortunate Jo and I have been to have had the opportunity to travel so much. Starting with a trip to the photo’11 exhibition in January, my year has been filled with journeys, both long and short. We’ve…
One of the great things about being responsible for the technical direction of a team of developers is that you get to bring your ideas to a project and, in many instances, try out new techniques which would otherwise only be seen on a personal website or blog. I wrote at the beginning of the…
I ran the latest of my photographic workshops last weekend and chose (mainly because of the time of year) to hold it in the studio. Thanks to the ready availability of the studio space at Satzart in Bern, we were able to use the spacious room to cover basic introduction to the Elinchrom equipment and…
Construction of this former monastery began in 1698. The church, built in Baroque style, was consecrated in 1719. The main altar, the chancel and the statues of saints in the church and on the facade are by Balthasar Esterbauer; the ceiling frescoes are by Melchior Steidl. In 1933 Duke Ludwig Wilhelm in Bavaria sold the…
On a visit to Ebern in Germany, we came across a picturesque autumnal courtyard. On the wall outside, a plaque told of many years ago.
The mountaintop hotel, restaurant and visitor complex on Mount Pilatus, between Lake Lucerne and the forest cantons of Obwalden and Nidwalden, is a marvel of structural engineering. An ugly one, but a marvel nonetheless.
The Jungfraujoch station, tourist destination and meteorological research centre sits on the “saddle” between the Mönch and Jungfrau peaks. The weather was fine enough to spend some time outside when we visited, so I took the opportunity to stomp through the snow to the very base of the Mathildespitze, a high outcrop beneath the main…
If you’re a web developer, checking that you use the standards of the web and valid code will make your life infinitely easier. By planning now for a standards-based future and focusing on HTML5 and its associated technologies, you’ll be building for the future: not just saving yourself time, but also making sure that the…
As we were so near the border when we visited Bavaria in October, we drove over into the Czech Republic to add the thirteenth country to the list of those I’ve visited. There’s not much in this region and in order to avoid paying a motorway toll – as we were only there for an…
I like being up high. When we were in Stuttgart at the beginning of October, I could therefore hardly turn up the chance to visit the restaurant at the top of the world’s first concrete television tower. I am a little scared of heights when on man-made structures, but I managed to overcome a wobbly-knees…
I was recently interviewed for the website expatarrivals.com and asked for my thoughts on life as a foreigner in Switzerland. Here’s the transcript of the emailed interview.
I ran a course earlier in the year on the subject of portraiture and lighting, which was very well received by the attendees and which I really enjoyed organizing. I’ve been planning to run a similar photo course for a while now, and have decided that the next event will take place on the weekend…
Jo and I split our journey to Franconia in southern Germany with a stop-over in Stuttgart. As we’d time to kill whilst there, we looked up some of the sights in advance and decided to stop off briefly at one of the centres of German engineering: the Porsche district. Alongside the obligatorily huge showroom of…
As I wrote earlier in the week, I was honoured to be allowed to show 20 of my photos from the One Frame Movie series at the 50th anniversary show of Pix Mix in Bern this week. I hadn’t quite anticipated the number of people who would be attending and during the break, I quickly…
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is…
I love taking portraits of people; whether I know them or not. I do it because of my passion for the image, not for financial gain, and I really wish more people would volunteer to let me photograph them. Here’s why.
I’ve submitted five photos to an Interlaken Tourism competition, whose subject is the Jungfrau mountain in the Bernese Oberland. If you have a Facebook account, please pop over and vote for your favourite amongst the following photos. Thank you in advance!
I’ve been living in the area around Spiez since moving here eleven years ago and my home for the vast majority of my time here has been in an attic flat at the top of the road leading to the lake and castle. Jo moved to live with me in 2006 and we’ve had a…
Friends Choo Choo release their next music video, conceived and filmed by their bass player Yan.
This medieval bridge in Florence, rebuilt in 1345, is the only one remaining which is lined on both sides by shops. Originally hosting butcher shops, the bridge has been populated by jewellers and goldsmiths since the late sixteenth century. The bridge is the only one in Florence to have survived the Second World War: on…
I am enjoying the video capabilities of my Nikon, particularly to capture “moving photographs” such as this one. Filmed during our summer holiday in Florence, Italy, whilst we ate mint choc chip ice cream and enjoyed the music.
