Spiez Archives - Permanent Tourist

A lunchtime walk by the vineyards in the sunshine, ten years after moving away from nearby.

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I’m an introvert at the best of times, which comes in handy when needing to keep away from other people.

Spiez castle, photographed at dusk using a Mavic Air drone

A quick tip on how to get better image results from your Mavic drone in low-light conditions.

I was half an hour early for an appointment at the Spiez council offices this morning, so I went for a brief stroll through the woods to the top of the vineyards while I was waiting. It was so peaceful, with fresh powdered snow slipping silently from the trees and only two or three other people there […]

First shots with two new acquisitions: a super-wide lens and an RR90 shutter release cable.

Jo found that because we’d saved so many points on our supermarket card, that we could “afford” a kayak using points alone. A few days later, and a large and heavy cardboard box arrived on the post woman’s scooter trailer and we had our dinghy: an Intex Challenger K2.

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 […]

With the money I’ve put aside for new camera gear, a new, reliable, fully automated flash gun was high on my “wants” list, not least because I receive a slowly increasing number of requests to take portrait photographs and cover events.

The extensions and improvements to the Permanent Tourist website continue apace, with new galleries in the Photography section.

Pink pine cones amongst a mass of natural colour on the trees outside our window at home.

Shot from near the train station in Spiez this morning, just as the first rays of sun found a way through the clouds to illuminate the town.

One of my favourite aspects of our home in Spiez is the fact that we have such interesting and ever-changing views across the town and up to the wood behind our house. It’s particularly lovely to look out of the windows late at night, when neighbouring homes are sinking into darkness and when the surrounding […]

Large Christmas tree, Spiez, Switzerland

I pledge to take more winter landscape photos this year, after being out this evening to take some long-awaited photos of the Christmas lights in Spiez.

It’s been a hectic week and weekend, hence the delay in posting that I’ve released my 2010 calendar.

I woke a sleeping drunk last night, when the train to Interlaken terminated in Spiez due to the onward line being blocked. He looked at me blurrily and asked whether he needed to catch the onward replacement bus service to get to Grenoble. (Which is in France.) In other words, he’d staggered onto the wrong […]

The next in a series of portrait sessions which I’ve shot for free, this time at and near my home in Spiez of friends Krist and Corinne.

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Jo poses for an unusual night-time portrait in Spiez.

My friend Beat Glauser, discussing photographic geekery late one evening at my home.

The Seenachtsfest took place last weekend in Spiez, so Jo and I headed up with our friend Beat to the vineyards near our home, where there is a commanding view across the castle, lake and surrounding mountains.

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Lake Thun (German: Thunersee) is an Alpine lake in the Bernese Oberland in Switzerland. It takes its name from the city of Thun, on its north western shore. The lake is fed by water from Lake Brienz to the south east, which lies 6 metres higher than Lake Thun, and various streams in the Oberland, […]

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That was the idea, anyway. I’ve been inspired by Nick Turpin’s street shots, using high, undiffused strobes, and have been experimenting on and off with the technique. This is a shot from this evening in the woods near my home, which uses a single flashgun on a 3 metre stand out of shot to the […]

A complete accident which worked out well. Slightly out of focus, misaligned, and the second flash didn’t fire because I was blocking the optical sensor. I like it, though. Strobist info: 1 speedlight on 1/16 power off-camera left (high). Background illuminated by feathered spill from the single light. Sepia toning and vignette courtesy of Adobe […]

An exercise in depth of field with my new 50mm/f1.8 lens.

At work, we needed to buy both a point-and-shoot video camera and a new stills camera, so, on my advice, we bought a new Nikon D90 which can fulfil both requirements.

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The Niesen is a mountain, located in the Bernese Oberland region of the Swiss Alps, overlooking the lake of Thun and is often called the Swiss Pyramid. The summit of the mountain (2362 meters) can be reached easily with a funicular from Mülenen (near Reichenbach). The construction of the Niesenbahn funicular was completed in 1910. […]

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A photo which probably represents the end of Autumn.

I bought Jo this dress last weekend. It’s lovely; a modern tea dress reminiscent of years gone by. Jo’s figure and style is greatly flattered by dresses like this and where it comes and goes from fashion listings (so I’ve read: don’t think for a minute that I have any idea of women’s fashion), Jo […]

As the sky prepares itself for evening, darkening through shades of blue and colouring more and more from the day’s greyness, the cloud in the distance becomes more dense; a threatening presence trapped on the far side of the open doorway to a narrow alpine valley. Gusts of wind twirl the outer reaches, bringing the […]

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

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.

It’s been a long time coming, but Spring is here. Beautiful weather this past weekend, so it’ll soon be time once more to travel to Thun by ship for shopping trip, and time to dust off the camera to capture summer sunshine.

The harbour area of Spiez, taken from the train station. Poet Josef Viktor Widmann (1842–1911) wrote in his book Spaziergänge in den Alpen (Strolls in the Alps) that “the view from Spiez Station is one of the most beautiful in the world“. I’d imagine that the foreground of this view was quite different at the […]

Heaven is a warm, cosy home, with sparkling candles, a Christmas tree dusted with (fake) snow, and my love wrapped in a soft blanket with me, watching a good film after eating one of her delicious meals.

A tiny cottage buried in a vineyard near our home in Spiez, which is festooned with fairy lights around Christmas time. One could well imagine that it’d make a lovely little hidey hole, away from the crowds, where one could half expect to meet Annie Hawes and her sister preparing their own wine.

I’d not planned all that much about it, though one thing was certain. Some months earlier, it had come to me in a brain-wave. I wanted to ask Jo to marry me by the light of stars and moon, on the banks of the lake in the town where we live.

… I was taking this photograph out of the bedroom window.