Posts from 2013
Visiting the ridiculously picturesque castle and vineyards at Aigle, in the Rhone valley.
Brooke Shaden is a wonderfully creative photographer, whose images make me wish that I had the opportunity to spend more time on creating and editing more theatrical images. But I can’t complain; my time is, after all, spent on pursuing other passions and fascinating goals. One of the problems I came across when shooting for…
An early autumn rainy Sunday drove me down to the cellar today, for a long-awaited clear-out. Amongst the piles of stuff now split between a much tidier cellar and a car half-filled with rubbish to be taken to the recycling centre, a big box full of old music cassettes came to the fore, which I’ve…
Some people with whom I was at school were friends for many years thereafter, and some drifted into the distance as time moved on. Thanks to the rise of services like Facebook, some have popped up again many years later and I’m glad to be in touch with some of them again: albeit, sadly, on…
After so many years of driving up random little tracks and small roads in the Bernese Oberland, it’s rare to come across somewhere I’ve not been before. So when we decided to take a spontaneous trip out on Sunday, and found a little yellow line on the map leading south into the mountains from Kandersteg,…
I took part in our company day out yesterday, when we went down the river Aare from Schwellenmätteli in Bern, beneath the towering heights of Bern’s old city, to Eymatt, on the north western edge of the city suburbs. Although it sounds like a city-centre trip, the area around the river in and near Bern…
A tip I passed on to a participant at a photo workshop last weekend was one I learned from Joe McNally: not on how to light your subject or how to interact with them, but how to manage your heavy camera. By holding the camera in one hand and the flash in another, with the…
Glacier 3000 is the name of a tourist destination in the French Swiss region of Les Diablerets; the number in question being the (approximate) height in metres above sea level of the upper part of a sizeable glacier, easily reachable by cable car and snowed-over the whole year round. As well as the usual outdoor…
In preparation for this weekend’s portrait meetup, I did a little research on using my PocketWizard Mini TT1 and Flex TT5 to take photos with my Fujifilm X100 and Nikon SB-900. I didn’t expect the setup to allow TTL flash, and I was correct: this isn’t possible. It is, however, possible to use the PocketWizard…
After more than twelve years in Switzerland, there are few foods or drinks which I miss from the UK. Kenco (instant) coffee is a regular buy when we’re in the UK and we also stock up on pain killer tablets when we can, as prices in Switzerland are astronomical in comparison. The biggest pleasure which…
A quick reminder to those whose minds may have been on the glorious summer we’ve been having, that we are meeting in Zurich this Sunday for a day of portraiture. The theme is “Keep It Simple“: taking portraits on location with a minimum of equipment. Details A Facebook event entry is here. Please sign up if…
The view across the river and weir at Schwellenmätteli in Bern is wonderful on a late summer evening, and will be vastly improved from a photographic perfectionist’s point of view once the restoration work on the minster is complete. If I understand this article on Swiss newspaper website Der Bund correctly, there has been scaffolding…
Never having been a great one for sport and exercise, and having given up long walks around golf courses when I moved to Switzerland, my legs aren’t up to the challenge of big mountain walks. My knees are a bit of a weak point, and a long walk in the mountains often ends in a…
Here in Switzerland, a few active photographic members of social media website Twitter have decided to pool their resources and initiate a calendar of Swiss photos for 2014, featuring photos from a Flickr group entitled “Twalender 2014”. (Kalender being the German translation of calendar.) Flickr members can add up to five of their photos to the…
Swimming in the river Aare is a hobby I’ve taken up this year with gusto, having been initiated by colleagues at work last summer. Once past Bern, the river slows down as it meanders through the countryside and the greenness of the pastures below the ridge of the Jura mountains extends into the river itself, reminding…
I’m sometimes asked for tips on places to see and to visit in London. Among other things, visitors want to know where to eat and my usual tip – especially in the summer – is the Tattershall Castle. Although it may sound like the name of a pub, it’s actually a paddle steamer, built in…
Sometimes I remember to take a photo just so that I can look at it one day in the future and say, “do you remember when we used to do this?” One day, this photo will be twenty years ago.
Before I was any good at taking photos, I’d flick through the pages of National Geographic and daydream of trips to new places, where I’d capture wonderfully lit scenes to my heart’s content. Michael Palin’s first travel TV series “Around The World In Eighty Days” was the first series which piqued my interest in travel…
The news story in this video highlights technical points which seem obvious to most mobile phone users, but which less tech-savvy people may easily overlook. If you take photos when location services are active on your phone, the photos contain details of where and when the photo was taken. Share the photo on Facebook, Twitter…
The “Aareinseli” is a small, privately-owned island in the middle of the river Aare, just upstream of the Swiss town of Solothurn. The owners, who run a smallholding on the island, open the island to paying guests between May and September and offer an idyllic setting for social events: from a basic drinks reception to…
It was amazing to watch him in the darkroom at an advanced age, still get excited when the results were pleasing. He still struggled like we all do in the darkroom and he struggled behind the camera, and when he had a success he was beaming. John Sexton It’s a bit scary to think that…
