Posts about spiez

  • Complementary

    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.

  • 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,…

  • Alien abduction

    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…

  • Week 13 of 52

    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…

  • Winter vines

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

  • Snow in Spiez

    Snow in Spiez

    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.

  • 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.…

  • A photo which probably represents the end of Autumn.

  • Tea Dressing

    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.

  • Spring is here

    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.

  • Bathing

  • 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.

  • Rustico

    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.