here’s my project 52 shot for the tenth week. the topic was

fernweh.

this topic could be so easy if archive photos would be allowed. like in the last year, i visited many stunning places which i’d love to see again right now:

the photos were taken near vikajärvi, haines junction, keno and mayo, and yellowknife (from left to right, top to bottom). the message of these photos is plain and simple: i’d like to be far, far more north! somewhere near the arctic circle, or even north of it.

unfortunately, i couldn’t make it north. instead, i went south, and up by train, to recover a photography combining two aspects of northern travel: snow and railways.

technical details: 1/1000s, f/8, 32mm, iso 200.

(this photo is in fact older than the topic. originally i wanted to near to that place again, to take more photos, also for use for project 52. unfortunately, i was too busy and too sick to do this.)

this afternoon i did a quick trip to the üetliberg.

eventually i was able to watch a very beautiful sunset. here are some excerpts:

here’s my project 52 shot for the ninth week. the topic was

kontraste.

fire and shade… a strong contrast, allowing the beholder to only see some details, shrouded in black, while being dazzled by the source of light.
please click the photo to get a larger version:

technical details: 1/30s, f/10, 105mm, iso 200; modified using gimp.

for my eighth project 52 photo i took apart a hard disk and made some macro shots. of course, especially since these are my first macro shots, this resulted in a few more shots. in case you’re interested, here are some more:

thanks a lot to the ones who provided me with the (already dead, before opening it up) hard disk! i hope they’ll like the pictures as well…

here’s my project 52 shot for the eighth week. the topic was

technik, freund oder feind?

i know, this photo comes a bit late, but i had to wait for a new gadget to do this photo. the idea is already a few weeks old :-) harddisks are a piece of computer equipment which can be friend or foe: they store your data, your photos, your videos, your music, for a long time, fast to access. but sometimes, they suffer from head crashes or other fatal injuries, and your data, your photos, your whatever is gone. sometimes it can be recovered, sometimes not. essentially everyone who has been working with computers had a harddisk failure somewhen, i’m sure. i had several. some of them really kicked me in the ass, since i didn’t had a current backup. (this is also the reason why i don’t have any photos from a longer period many years ago…) nowadays, i have a pretty redundant system of backups, so this shouldn’t happen anymore. but who knows… there is no absolute error tolerance. the disk in the photo is pretty much dead, not only since it is open, but already covered by lots of dust, in just a short period of time. dust on the platter is an absolute killer…
please click the photo to get a larger version:

technical details: 15s, f/45, 105mm, iso 200.

yesterday, i spent over 15 hours on various trains in switzerland. i started at 6 am at the main station in zürich and proceeded to zermatt via visp. in zermatt, i explored the city a bit in the 45 minutes i had, and got back to the train station to get on the glacier express, departing 10 am, which eventually led me to st. moritz. the glacier express is one of the famous panoramic train lines in switzerland, similar to the golden pass panoramics tour i did a couple of years ago, leading through the alps, peaking in oberalbpass at 2033 meters above sea level. the weather was mostly beautiful, except a lot of fog around chur. i had the three course meal on the train, it was really good. (there are also vegetarian choices.) finally, in disentis, there was a fasnacht parade going on.

i took some photos on the trip. unfortunately, one cannot open the windows of the glacier express, whence there are always some more or less ugly reflections lurking around. here are some of the better shots:

if you want to take a lot of photos, better take a usual train, since on these routes they often have windows which can be opened. i might do that somewhen soon, at least for the part from andermatt to disentis.

besides the inability to open the windows, the trip is great! if you have a chance, do it. it’s probably also very interesting during summer, and also during winter when there’s more snow than this year…

yesterday, i again used my ga to explore a bit of switzerland (and italy). i decided to use an offer by the sbb to drive up the cimetta, a mountain next to locarno at the lago maggiore. the weather report for most of switzerland wasn’t very good yesterday, except for the ticino, whence i ended up there. at ground level it was rather foggy, but when climbing up the mountain by cable car i eventually got out of the sea of fog. around the cardada station, the final destination of said cable car, wasn’t too much snow, but still enough left to take a lot of snow photos! later i took the chair lift up to the top and had lunch there, as well as took out my laptop (which i carried with me all the time… i really need to get a netbook!) and worked a bit. that was a funny moment, sitting over 1600 meters over sea level, surrounded by snow, while programming. i guess i have to do that more often :-)

later, i took the cable car back down to locarno and explored the city a bit. here are some impressions, including the madonna del sasso and the castello visconteo:

finally, i took the train to domodossola, operated by fart (ferrovie autolinee regionali ticinesi). the train ride is really beautiful. unfortunately, i had to shoot all photos through the window, which resulted in not so great ones… anyway, there are a few i really like:

i didn’t stay in domodossola, due to being tired and its getting dark outside, so i hopped onto the next train to brig, going through the simplon tunnel (about whose construction i read a novel called simplon some years ago). eventually, 14 hours after my departure, i arrived back in zürich.

here’s my project 52 shot for the seventh week. the topic was

alles rot!

since i don’t have a red filter, i had to think of something. something i could do without investing too much time and money. (i had a great idea which violates at least one of these two points.) while doing another boat trip on lake zürich today, i noticed that some walls inside the boat were red and reflecting: the perfect setting for a photo in red! the result shows me, a bit of lake zürich’s water and parts of the zürich gold coast. please click the photo to get a larger version:

technical details: 1/20s, f/10, 50mm, iso 200.

the trip also resulted in another “reddish” photo collection, which i like but which fits less well than the above photo. here it is:

here’s my project 52 shot for the sixth week. the topic was

teeparty.

for this topic, i needed a bit of help. mostly because i don’t want to eat and drink all the depicted things myself at once :-) but that’s what you have friends for, so i took my camera with me to university today and took this photo during coffee after lunch. well, the term “coffee” is used for all kinds of liquids and treats. this photo features hot chocolate (caotina, of course), tea, water and coffee, with vermicelles desserts and a cookie(?). caotina and vermicelles, two things i really missed while being in canada. if you ever visit me here, you have to try this combination as well…
please click the photo to get a larger version:

technical details: 1/40s, f/16, 50mm, iso 200.

here are a few more impressions from the irchelpark at dawn.

my favorite photo is the following one: