A riot of colour
While I'm in colour mode, this happened on Saturday. It wasn't really a riot but it was colourful, and noisy, and well supported (15,000) and it was a good old trade union protest march. You can read about it all at Swissinfo
Guardian Angel
The french artist Niki de Saint Phalle has a particular place in the hearts of the Swiss, and the Zürchers in particular. She was married to Swiss artist Jean Tinguely, who features elsewhere in this blog, and her sculpture Guardian Angel hangs over commuters as they make their way morning and evening through Zürich Hauptbahnhof. This is a poor photo, but I wanted to post on this subject today. I feel it at least shows the way that the sculpture presides over the concourse and the people
The station is celebrating the 10th anniversary of the sculpture with posters, artworks and memorabilia dispersed around the shops and cafes of the station. I think this is a nice idea - these are the places that also form part of the commuters everyday routine
Lunch Break - Schwingen
I work some of the time for UBS, who are keen to sponsor all sorts of events (Americas Cup eg) and coming up they are supporting the Swiss Olympics (Eidgenössisches Schwing- und Älplerfest 2007) in Aarau next week
As a foretaste we had some wrestling in the canteen today - the only way to settle lunch time quarrels
Here are all the original pictures
Canon EOS5D 70-200mm f2.8 IS 1600ASA @f2.8. For those who might be in the least bit interested, because this was indoors, I took a few trial exposures, and then set the camera on manual exposure 1/1250 @ f2.8 and popped away
Presto
No, this is not a waiter throwing a tantrum because someone asked for french mustard with their bratwurst. Taken in Bahnhofstrasse, one of the many bands in Switzerland being led with gusto by this Furtwangler look-alike.
Canon EOS 5D 70-200mm f2.8 L IS 1/2500 @f2.8
Cooling Off II
Just in case anyone thought it was only the boys showing off
Canon EOS5D 70-200mm IS L @200mm ASA400
Cooling off
A couple of weeks ago I had a shot of a young guy diving into Lake Zurich. This was from a platform specially erected for the Züri Fäscht, and it proved so popular that they've left it for the season. This week the weather is hotting up so a few people have been taking advantage - more of a "Butch Cassidy" leap this one.
Canon EOS5D 70-200mm f2.8 IS L @100mm. 1/2000 F5.6 ISO 400
Züri Fäscht
A jumble of a photograph, littered with unsympathetic artifacts, but that was the jumble of Zurich Fascht on Saturday. Somehow or other I managed to get a shot that doesn't have any of the numerous rides, stalls, dodgems etc that dominate the occasion. Maybe next time - but I liked the flags
Ironman
Last week it was the Swiss Inline Cup. This week Ironman Zurich 2007 took over part of the city centre for the weekend. 3.8 km swim, 188 km cycle and 42 km run (marathon)
I didn't get any really good shots, but I was more interested in getting to know the focusing capabilities of the Canon EOS5D and the 70-200mm f2.8. Like a lot of these dSLRs the EOS5 has a predictive autofocus feature and a fast(ish) motor drive (5fps). This means you can focus on an object moving towards you or away from you. The camera constantly refocuses and guesses what the focus will be when you press the shutter. In motor drive mode it seems to refine this process a bit after the first frame. I found that subsequent frames tended to be better. There is much to learn about the technique, but it's all a bit technical. Apparently with a fast autofocus lens you can track things going at 186mph. I remember doing motor sport shots with a manual focus telephoto and I have to say this feels a bit like cheating.
I shot 10 frames of this guy in rapid succession doing about 45kph I guess. This was the best, but it was also the last, so he'd got a bit close to me and I clipped the front wheel off. This is one of the issues with tracking. You tend to set initial focus in the upper middle of the subject with the centre focus point - the head for example - so when the subject is closer you cannot recompose without losing the focus reference. With experience I suppose you get to know what part of the action to track
Swiss Inline Cup
Took some photos at the Swiss Inline Cup today. This is the largest inline skating event in the world and has several races throughout the country. Today it was in Zurich. More info here
I put some other photos here, in COLOUR