Posts about Switzerland
Switzerland, a quadrilingual country in the middle of Europe, has been my home since 2001.
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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.
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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…
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Back in 2011, the organizers of Bike To Work Switzerland approached my employer !frappant Webfactory to re-develop their website and the participants’ admin system. I worked with a third-party usability consultant to re-think and re-design the project, before I carried out the design work in Photoshop and the team and I subsequently produced the website on the base…
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Thanks to all of those who have completed the Doodle poll mentioned in a previous post, the date for our next meetup has been chosen as Sunday, 25th August at the Blatterwiese park in Zurich. Members of Facebook can sign up for the event and discuss it on my Facebook page; alternatively, please feel free to leave…
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What makes a picture is often the main subject. But a little attention to detail can also work wonders and turn a nice picture into a really nice picture. Walking in the park with friends last autumn, towards the end of a couple of hours shooting portraits, the lighter patches between the trees caught my…
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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…
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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.
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I’ve been prompted recently to update my wedding portfolio; in particular since I’ve begun using Flickr as an extension to the image archive for this website. I’ve added three new groups of photos over the last couple of days: from Interlaken in 2011… …from Lindau in summer 2012… …and from Zurich in December 2012.
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It’s been a while since my last photo workshop and so it’s definitely time for another! I’ve spent a lot of time over the past year getting used to a simpler workflow and getting used to my Fuji X100 and since doing so, I’ve constantly been reminded how easier and how much more fun it…
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Despite attempts at repeal through the years and with the exception of rallying and hillclimb events, spectator motor racing events have been banned in Switzerland for nearly sixty years. (Rallying and hillclimb events are allowed as the cars don’t race directly against one another and stringent spectator protection is enforced.) The Swiss have always been…
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…is, according to Chase Jarvis, the one you have with you. By that, he means that if you don’t have your beautiful Leica or professional Nikon with you, but you have your iPhone, then the iPhone is the best camera to grab the shot that you would otherwise have missed. There’s always been a lot…
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The Swiss are reknowned for their efficiency and I’m used to the smoothness of dealing with officialdom here. The extent of the efficiency surprised me a little this morning, though, when for the first time since I’ve lived here, I had to take my car to the testing centre. The “Amtliche Fahrzeugprüfung” is akin to…
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My friends Yannick and Lea made another film last summer of an extended journey around the Jura mountains, on the northern edge of Switzerland and into France. It’s quite delightful and rounded off wonderfully by the music they’ve used, which they composed and produced themselves. I am envious of their talent, it must be said.
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I thought that it’s about time that I write a little bit about the village where we live, given that we moved a year a half ago and I’ve since had the chance to (intermittently) extend my collection of photos. Faulensee is a small village tucked into the curve of the lake shore between Interlaken…
