train
Technical case study: SBB RCS
The latest project we've launched at !frappant is for SBB (Swiss Railways): a microsite for the Rail Control System team, which promotes their work controlling the flow of rail traffic throughout the national network.
Brienzer Rothorn, Switzerland
The Brienzer Rothorn is the tallest mountain on the northern side of Lake Brienz. The peak is accessible – in summer and autumn only – by a cable car from Sörenberg and by an open-sided, oil-powered steam railway from Brienz. The view across to the larger peaks of the…
Race The Tube
Visitors to London may expect that travelling by Tube is quicker than going on foot. It’s certainly quicker than travelling through London by taxi or by car. But is the train actually quicker than this athlete?…
A place by the tracks
The end of the main train line to Interlaken from Zurich, Basel and beyond, via Bern, takes travellers through the centre of the small city, where the train line passes within feet of buildings in the main shopping centre and past the otherwise quiet lanes and back roads along the river.
A winter weekend
In January of 2005 - five years ago this week - Jo visited me in Switzerland for the first time. These photos show our wonderful time together.
Black and white Lightroom presets by MikeyG
An example of an image processed using a simple preset available through the Lightroom Presets website.
Don’t ride the rails drunk, kids
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,…
Chalk Farm Tube Station, London
One of my pictures in 1993 was of the unique tiling at Chalk Farm on the Northern Line, late one evening.
Light in the darkness
With the arrival of warmer weather and longer, sunnier evenings, I am able to begin using a technique which works in many places with dark, deep shadows and small patches of bright sunlight. Here are a few examples and a description of how to achieve this kind of shot. The shots in this article are simple to achieve, provided that you know how to set the light metering on your camera.
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.
Last Day in Brienz
Photos from my last day in Brienz after seven and a half years with Gossweiler Media AG are now online at Flickr.
Long Days on the rails
I received a letter from my new employer today, detailing the first weeks of my employment and lots of interesting sessions they have planned, from “getting to know you” time in the office in Bern to “an hour with the CEO” at the Zürich office. Starting on my first day,…
General Abonnement
By my reckoning, I have made the journey between Brienz and Spiez nearly three and a half thousand times in the past seven and a half years: a phenomenal number of trips backwards and forward for a person who used to long to abandon the car and travel…
Headbanging
A man, tired, carries his daughter onto the train as she rests her head on his shoulder and sucks her thumb. The train picks up speed and the man stands, resting from the waist on a suitably padded bench, with the girl half asleep and his back to the adjacent…
Switzerland hit for six by storms and floods
Torrential rain has hit Switzerland in the worst storms since the heavy flooding experienced two years ago. Sirens sounded the alarm in several parts of the country on Wednesday evening and more than 100 people were evacuated from their homes as rivers and lakes came close to bursting their banks.
Far Too Early
It feels as though you’ve only just closed your eyes, when the alarm clock buzzes its way into your consciousness. Through the darkness, the numerals flash at you irritably as if they, too, are annoyed at being called into service so early. The rest of the room is lit dimly…