Posts about Brienz BE

I had the great pleasure of working in the small lakeside village on the shores of the turquoise-blue lake of the same name for over seven years, in the central Swiss region of canton Bern. Brienz is principally a traditional village, from the violin-makers’ school to a plethora of carpenters, joiners and woodwork artists. Busy in the summer with tourists travelling between Lucerne and Interlaken, and peaceful in the winter season, it’s high on my list of places to visit in the Bernese Oberland: not just for the quaint traditional feel but also as a great starting point for a boat trip along the lake, or a post bus trip up into the mountains.

  • Axalp in the snow

    Axalp in the snow

    Walking in the snowy landscape of Axalp, high above Lake Brienz in the Swiss Bernese Oberland.

  • Christmas day in the snow at Ballenberg

    Strolling in a winter wonderland on an unusual Christmas Day.

  • Thunersee and Brienzersee – Pure Switzerland

    The region I’ve been calling home for sixteen years.

  • Remembering my work in 2008 on Swiss t.v.’s Funky Kitchen Club.

  • Ballenberg in autumn

    Jo and I took a stroll around the Ballenberg open air museum on her birthday weekend a couple of weeks ago. The museum and its buildings are officially open to the public between April and October, but the site, its paths and woodlands are left accessible after the business closes up for the winter. It’s a…

  • Adobe Lightroom is a boon to the photographer. With the introduction of intelligent repair tools, it has now entirely replaced Photoshop for me, and I can not only tweak photos but also re-edit them to quite a level of detail. One of the great features of Lightroom is the ability to save a group of…

  • Friends Dan and Lil were recently married in the glorious surroundings of the Giessbach Hotel. I was delighted to be able to take wedding photos for them. Here’s a small selection of my favourites from the day. More details of my wedding photography are over here.

  • The older I get, the more I come to recognize the way in which my photographs aid my memory. This is borne out by the way in which I can scroll back through my Lightroom catalogue of digital photos – currently topping 61,000 entries on two external hard drives, with more to be added from…

  • I drove through Brienz this weekend for the first time in a couple of years, and roadworks near the office where I used to work reminded me of the terrible events of August 2005.

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

  • That chill in the air

    The autumn fairs may be some time away yet, but the first day of September here in the Swiss Alps has arrived with the kind of chilled air which tells me that there is snow on the mountains.

  • A long exposure photograph of the Giessbach waterfall near Brienz in full torrent.

  • Cherry blossom

  • Mist rising from the lake during the early morning in Brienz, Switzerland. Photograph taken in 2005.

  • I am auctioning off a single print of one of my photographs to the highest bidder to support the earthquake victims in Haiti.

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

  • An autumn stroll around the Ballenberg open-air museum with Jo’s parents.

  • Winter Sunset

    A tremendously colourful winter sunset in Brienz, where I used to work, looking from the small tourist village along the lake to Interlaken.

  • One year on

    A year ago today, I left my previous employer after seven and a half years to start a new working life in Bern.

  • The newest version of the newspaper, to which I still subscribe online despite no longer working or living in the catchment area, produced by a small handful of people and covering purely local news instead of falling to the temptation of reporting news from more distant regions, is at least a match for – if…

  • Costumed portraits of actors in the Brienz Dramatic Society production of Jeremias Gotthelf’s “Ueli der Chnächt”.