This blog has been going for a while now - 499 days - and it has strayed from the original intention of trying to give one persons impression of Zurich via a daily dose of photography

It's time for a change. I want to concentrate more on photography, and posting a daily photo, some of which are ok, a few of which are good, many of which are banal is diluting my efforts. This blog will continue, hopefully on a daily basis, but I'm going to amalgamate it with my other efforts (which are mainly prose rantings for anyone who hasn't looked). There will still be photographs, but mainly to illustrate topics.

I'm not sure how it's going to work out - we'll have to wait and see. Now is also a good time to thank all the people who have followed and contributed over the past 16 months or so. Keep an eye on this space, and hopefully you'll still find it worth a visit.

(Here are the stats btw)

I'm "on holiday" at the moment, although it's a bit of a busman's holiday hence the paucity of postings and general activity

Excuse the pseudo German. This is not so much a post, more of a thought which has struck me more than once over the last few years.

At home I have a shoebox full of family memorabilia, documents, photos, letters, etc. My sisters have even more such archive material. I spoke to a blogger friend recently and we looked at his photo records of family from the last 100+ years.

My point is, what happens now? We all have a huge amount of irreplaceable family and social documents stored on our computers or on servers around the world.

Where is that shoebox now, one that future generations can leaf through? The big institutes and concerns have a plan of course, but what about us? Anyone thought about this? Made a Will recently?

* The quote comes from Bertold Brecht /Kurt Weill - "Nanna's Lied"

"Wo sind die Tränen von gestern abend?
Wo ist die Schnee vom vergangenen Jahr?"

"Where are the tears from yesterday evening?
Where are the snows of yesteryear?"

"Bye, darling. I'm off to work now.."

I posted a photograph taken through this doorway way back at the start of the blog (probably a much better photo). I pass it regularly and I like the way that some things have stayed the same, especially the light, but there are subtle changes (like it looks as though they sold a lot of stuff)

Spotted in Père Lachaise cemetery, Paris

Another view of the allotments on the Hönggerberg, shown a week or two back

In 1970 as a schoolboy immersed in the classic rock of the period, Wishbone Ash were one of the bands we latched on to. Still going in 2008, although in name only - the band now seems to be an ever changing session line-up - seeing the name on a poster in Zurich gave me a bit of a jolt. Although I shouldn't be surprised - these old rock bands seem to go on for ever

Leica M3 50mm Summicron Tri-x

The road alongside the Limmat

Leica M4-2 35mm Summicron FP4

This is a photo of, well, Strehl-Gasse I suppose

Olympus OM-1 50mm Zuiko F1.4 Tri-x

Another with the big Bronny - a weir or something on the Limmat. I think - I forget exactly where this was taken

Bronica GS1 100mm Zenzanon Ilford PAN-F

Zurich gondola

There is something about piers like this that fascinates photographers, and I'm no exception. What is it? The metaphor? (There are always no people in the kind of photo I'm thinking of)

Leica M8 28mm Elmarit

I was going to call this "Untitled II" because it doesn't really have a subject, and I don't like titles anyway, but a blog post needs a title

It's actually taken from almost the same position as the first photo on this blog, facing in the opposite direction

Sometimes I take a photograph that I like but have no idea really why. That is, when I took it, it was just instinctive. I thought, "Hmm, that looks nice - click". This is one of those, and it's possible that no-one else shares the instinct

I thought, it must be the bicycle, because if you take the bicycle away, then it really is a nothing photo. However, there isn't anything about the bicycle that is really interesting other than that it gives us a subject - maybe it looks like it's standing up without visible means of support, but that wasn't what made me press the shutter. Then I realised it's probably just the light - backlit, shiny roads and pavement etc.

So its kinda symbiotic - bike needs the light, light needs the bike

My resolution to show a series of picture postcard views has fallen by the wayside. As usual I'm drawn to the details. This is taken in the porch of the Wasserkirche/Helmmhaus building shown a couple of posts ago. It's another favourite shooting location, because of the fountain (in the background) and the lighting. It's all in shadow but has some large windows which let in sunlight. This makes for an almost impossible exposure situation, especially with digital, when we have adjacent bright highlights and deep shadows as here. I've managed to recover some of the highlight detail, but the overall contrast has suffered as a result.

However what appeals to me about this subject is the monumental nature of these polished wooden benches (polished by many bums, and Mrs Mop - who had just been round with her can of Pledge) The patina can't really be captured - you need to see it and feel it, as I often do. Zurich is pretty liberal, but I could see myself getting lifted for "manhandling public furniture in a manner calculated to cause a breach of the peace.." or something

This post is dedicated to Chuckeroon who has been posting some nice photos of trees recently - just to show they don't all end up as firewood or battleships

Wandering around the Felix Vallotton exhibition at the Kunsthaus, took this out the window. Although you are free to take photos inside the Kunsthaus, visitng exhibitions are excepted.

I've no idea why I'm posting this photo really. I just traded in my Canon EOS20D, 10-22mm, 17-85mm, 60mm and 70-300mm IS for a Leica 28mm Elmarit (as threatened on my other blog) and this is the first photo I took with the new lens. A shaky 1/15 sec exposure of my kitchen. But I already love the little lens - I think it will sit on the M8 now, and I'm happy

Actually it's not too bad for handheld at 1/15s

Leica M8 28mm Elmarit

Another walkabout shot with the Zuiko 200mm F4. Looks a bit like an Orc that got on the wrong side of a skirmish...

As this has a bit of technical interest for some of us, and notwithstanding that I don't think pixel-peeking proves an awful lot, here also is a close up. The shots I took today were done at full aperture (f4) and about 1/250sec to show what a lens like this is best at - isolating subjects, and producing nice soft out of focus backgrounds

Canon EOS 5D Zuiko 200mm F4

I am fascinated taking photos around this pigeon loft above the Limmat on the Lindehof. The viewpoint is always the same, with the backdrop of the Grossmünster, but you never know exactly what you are going to get with this kind of shot as an entire Squadron of birds attempts to land at the same time, everything happens so quickly. I've posted a similar shot before, but this is slightly different (more pigeons)

I'm off to Venice for a couple of weeks, and rather than post archive photos of Zurich, I'm going to be posting daily from La Serenissima. Given the preponderance of photos ex-Zurich recently I guess I'm heading for ex-communication.

I've posted other photos of this fountain, but the cheeky nymphs and dolphins always amuse me

Leica M8 35mm Summicron

In Basel for the Andreas Gursky exhibition, so here's an extra-Zurich photo. The Rhine is one of the historical thoroughfares of Europe and I guess that accounts for a lot of Basel's cultural connections - Erasmus, Calvin, Euler, Federer etc

Leica M8 24mm Elmarit

In the old part of town there are many small workshops and businesses dealing in traditional skills such as metalwork, bookbinding, gilding and of course jewelery. It would be nice if this was a jewelers materials, but it's a metalworkers yard

Leica M8 35mm Summicron

The enchanting Isabella challenged me to provide eight random facts about myself. Instead I crafted eight specially selected ones. (This is all related to something called tagging which I always imagined to be something that happened to criminals.

So here goes

• As a nineteen year old I was chased down a Parisian street by 8 prostitutes all after the same thing (film out my camera)
• I was Bank of Scotland chess champion in 1980 (less impressive than it sounds, apologies to all my opponents, but it's true guys)
• I once read Moby Dick from end to end in the original English
• In one of my sporadic efforts to get in shape I cycled from London to Biarritz and then back to Aberdeen in Northern Scotland. I lost 3 pounds, but I did visit every pub on the way
• I have 2,700 classical CD's 2,500 of which I have never listened to (give or take)
• Assisting my father as a photographer I once shot an entire wedding party with no film in the camera
• I constantly preach tolerance and understanding and god help anyone that doesn't think the same way.
• I once saw a long silver cigar shaped object travelling silently at great speed across Loch Lomond
• I share the same birthday as the Queen of England (I do the mornings)

Leica M8 35mm Summicron

Charis Wilson was the beautiful young woman whose collaboration with Edward Weston as lover, wife, model and muse resulted in some of his most iconic work. I was looking through his photographs recently, and two of them involving Charis struck me as an interesting contrast.

The first is well known, but it never fails to strike me with the unusual pose and the analogies with Westons sensuous still lifes. The parts of the body seem disconnected, yet the whole hangs together in a curious, egg shaped assembly. Weston was driven and inspired by sexuality, but there is a story of him poring over this image with a magnifying glass to make sure no pubic hair was showing before releasing it for publication - this had much more to do with the publishing rules of the time than any sense of prudery

The second, less well known image shows a fully clothed Charis. Now it may be my imagination, but I feel in this image he is almost taking a sidelong glance at the mores of the day, and of course this image is a much more erotic offering than the first one.

And yet another - this from the same shop as previous. Something about porcelain that makes it classic in black and white.

Leica M8 90mm Tele Elmarit