The Girl

A couple of days ago I did a portrait-session with a work mate. Neither she nor I had any experience with this, so it was a First for both of us. The session went very well, she was extremely patient and played along better than I was hoping. Here are some examples - after some work in Photoshop.

The Birds

Although there are several building sites around our house and thus the noise level is rather high, I have spotted at least 3 bird-families raising their young. The cutest ones I find the swallows: Their five chicks have just fully fledged but still are a bit toddling. Today I got the chance to take a couple of heart-warming pictures.







I hope, you like those pics as much as I do!

At the zoo

Ok, it's been already three weeks now that I attended a foto-class at the zoo in Zurich. But I just focused on other things these three weeks. I don't want to let the cat out of the bag right now, since things are still in the making.

The course was actually really interesting, though my camera didn't play along. The teacher, a well-known animal-photographer in Switzerland, lent me one of his lenses, a 70-200mm F2.8 VR. But my camera wasn't able to focus correctly with that lens, and so all pictures I did with this one got blurred. Nonetheless I'm convinced that this is probably one of the next lenses I'll get for my camera - if I get to save enough money, since it costs about as much as the D300 itself... But next will definitely be a decent macro-lens. :)

But here you go: One of Masoala's giant turtles, taken with my own 70-300mm F4.5-5.6 VRII. The limited aperture-setting leads to slight motion-blur even though VRII is doing a very good job. You may not see it: That thing is about 1m long, far more than 150kg and close to 100 year old! I like the mirror-effect on the water pretty much... :)

10 years after: Bullet train hits bridge

Bullet trains got their name from their look. The first bullet train, the Japanese Shikansen Express, really looked like the bullet of a gun. Today those trains can go faster than 300 km/h, and in France they actually do. What can happen if something goes wrong was brought to our mind exactly 10 years ago at the small town of Eschede in Germany:

The wheel of the first passenger car of an ICE train lost its rim, which got stuck within the passenger cabin. Instead of engaging the emergency brake, the passenger sitting next to the site called a conductor. Meanwhile the rim grabbed a piece of a track switch, also slamming it through the passenger compartment, and then changed the setting of another switch – while the train crossing it. So now the train was rolling on two tracks. Just a few hundred meters ahead was a road bridge across the tracks, with a pier placed exactly between the two tracks the train was rolling on, still with 200 km/h. The pier got more or less pulverized; the bridge collapsed and buried car no. 5 underneath itself. The other 7 cars and the rear motor car jack-knifed like a folding ruler into the pile of the collapsed bridge and the completely flattened car underneath.

101 people died, more than 80 were injured, some of them so severely that they still can’t live without medical help. Those responsible for the accident have never been called to account. The Deutsche Bahn payed 30’000 Deutsch Mark for every lost soul – a cold comfort.
Let’s hope those lost souls rest in peace now.

Read the story here.

Masoala in Zurich / Introducing a new toy

A zoo can be a very sad place. All the animals locked up in cages not bigger than a couple of telephone-cells – for those who still remember what a telephone-cell is. The zoo in Zurich had to deal with a considerable loss of visitors probably due to the lack of modernisation of its facilities. So they came up with a completely new idea: Why not build a hall as big as two ice-hockey stadiums and plant rain-forest in there? All the animals that live in such a rain-forest should also live in that hall, and the visitors can walk through the hall on walk-ways and see the animals without glass or metal bars in between. Of course some animals were considered too dangerous for such an exhibition, so no tigers, poisonous snakes and other ‘fierce creatures’ were let in the hall. The whole project is called ‘Masoala’, as is the name of the rain-forest in Madagascar. See some impressions here...

Chameleon catching a fly

Gecko posing for the picture

Unknown bird - there are hundreds of these orange things!!!

Chameleon stalking

With this post I’m also introducing a new toy of mine. Yes, I did it: I bought the brand new Nikon D300. Although it's a rather expensive camera, I think it's worth each penny. It took me some time to get familiar with it, but now, after almost a month, I know what the main menues are - of course I still haven't tested all the 400 or so sub-menues... See sample-pictures here.

Sparrow greeting a snail

Dragon-head flower - can't remember the correct name...

Cherry-tree

Flightforum Flight Rally / Spacecaptain Claude Nicollier

It’s April and the Flightforum has carried out the annual flight-rally. This year’s destination was the airfield La Blecherette at Lausanne. It was the seventh rally, and this year we had 60 planes taking part. And as if it was magic: The seventh time the weather was with us!

I flew with my ‘long time rally-pilot’ Jeff again this year, a man who earns his money flying A321’s for a large German carrier, and a man who emanates confidence like no other pilot I’ve ever met flying a small plane. This time we flew with HB-KOE, a french Robin DR-400 equiped with the latest avionics. Also joining us were Melanie, Jeff’s girlfriend, and Martin, one of my former YMCA-mates.

We took off in Birrfeld and headed south first, towards Lucerne. Turning right we passed the Pilatus Mountain, the airfields Alpnach, Kägiswil and Meiringen. Next we passed Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen and entered the Jungfrau Region. The flight track then lead us over the Schilthorn and Gruyerre. Then Jeff asked Martin who sat in the co-pilots seat to take over the controls – Martin was happy as a clown, as this was his first time flying an airplane on his own. We followed the motorway towards Vevey and then entered Lausanne airspace and enqueued the Lausanne approach pattern. After an interesting landing on the upward sloped strip we taxied to our parking and took a short look at the other planes.

The highlight of this year’s rally was a lecture of four-time Space Shuttle astronaut Claude Nicollier. The lecture was very interesting and held a wealth of information about the Space Shuttle and its missions. Mr. Nicollier also brought in funny things like: ‘There are written procedures for everything in the space shuttle – even for using the toilet...’

On the way back we flew more or less directly to Birrfeld. We overflew Romont, passed by Fribourg, did a circle over Bern and Staufen and then landed safely at our homebase. Our team will most probably fly together again next year - unless Jeff has other duty with a larger plane.

Lucerne with the famous Chapell-Bridge

North face of the Eiger

Turning final at Lausanne La Blecherette

The Bundeshaus at Bern - including about 8'000 people who demonstrated for a free Tibet

Claude Nicollier and me

See the whole album here.

Mark Knopfler

Well, I didn’t REALLY know what to expect from that: Mark Knopfler, former head and singer/guitar player from Dire Straits, was to play in Zurich. Of course I know all the old DS-Songs. Of course I know several songs from his solo-albums. But actually seeing one of the biggest guitar heroes of all times is something different. And just as unspectacular his music seems at the first instance the concert begun: Lights out – band’s on stage. No big intro, no laser beams, no films on an oversize silver screen. Just 7 guys on stage who instantly begin to play. And they played. And played. And played. It was only after 2 hours and 15 minutes when they finally left the stage – it’s been quite a while since I have seen a concert during that long.
After 5 or 6 songs from his solo-career Mark began to play several old DS songs. What It Is, Romeo and Juliet, Telegraph Road, Sultans of Swing and others. The audience couldn’t get enough, and we got more of it. Amongst the encores was Brothers in Arms, a song about the Falkland war fought by the UK in 1983.
What had begun as a very wet and demoralising day ended with a wonderful music-event that I will always remember.
I took these pictures last night in Zurich, no comment on the videos.