Winter in Potsdam

We haven't had as much snow as this year for a long time during Christmas. When I was visiting my parents, it was a great opportunity to see the snow-covered parks in Potsdam. I really enjoyed the beautiful scenery during these last days. Tomorrow, however, I'll escape to Greece for a couple of days of sunshine and + (!) 15 °C, which is a welcome change.

Sunrise at the Matterhorn

Another image from my slide collection ... This one was taken during a bike tour with Thomas in the Alpes in 1997. We got up very early (probably something like 4:30) to make it to the Matterhorn from the village of Zermatt before / during sunrise.

Potsdam ... many years ago

I finally found a way to digitize my slide collections from the times of analog photography in a way that's not too time consuming and produces very good results. So I will probably spend most of the long winter nights creating digital versions of my old photographs. Since I first started taking pictures in the park of Sans-souci in Potsdam, here a first image of the >Neues Palais< in this park, which I took probably sometime in the 90ies with a Canon 500 N SLR. I'm sure I'll post more of these 'historic' pictures in the weeks to come!

Bull fight

During a recent visit to France I went to a bullfight. Having been convinced by two friends independently, that bull-fighting consists in France merely of "stealing" a ribbon from the horn of the bull, I didn't expecting anything violent. Well, I was wrong ...

Avignon from the Palace of the Popes

Crete holidays

We recently came back from our holidays in Crete. Before I'll manage to upload the gallerly, here some first impressions from this beautiful island.

Morning in Chania

Our ferry arrived around 5:30 am in Chania, so we had to wait for the sun to get up and the hotel to open. Luckily, the hotel had an open terrace with a beautiful view across the old port of Chania and a bench for a short nap before exploring the city.

Kallergi refuge

360° panorama from the Kallergi refuge, that was our home for two nights in the >Lefka Ori<, the White Mountains in the southwest of Crete.

The stars above Miliá

Balos beach

Maybe the most beautiful beach in Crete.

Acrobatic goat

The next step in evolution ...

Holidays!

In two days, we'll leave for our summer holidays. We'll go - you guessed it - to Greece. After some days in Athens we will spend most of the time on Crete. I've only heard good things about it and I'm really excited to go. I'm especially looking forward to a couple of days hiking in the 'lefka ori', the white mountains. But I hope we'll also find some great beaches like the one below from last year in Antipaxos.

Last Vietnam galleries added!

Finally, half a year after we returned from our first trip to asia, I finished and uploaded the latest and last three galleries. The impressions of the Mekong delta were dominated by the lives of the people on and by the water. On the island Phu Quoc we spent the last days of our holidays and with its tropical weather, wonderful beaches and great food it was the perfect, relaxing way to finish this amazing trip. Finally, on our way back home we had an 8-hour stop-over in Hong Kong, which was just enough for a short visit including the Victoria peak, from where you have an amazing view over the city, especially during the night. (And, yes, I know - Hong Kong is not a part of Vietnam ;)) So go ahead and check out the galleries on colors · and · contrasts!

My girlfriend went to England and all she brought me ...

Bordeaux

Recently, we spent a great weekend in Bordeaux, visiting Ioannas sister Katerina. We ate great food, tasted wonderful wines, cruised through the vineyards and chateaux of Saint-Emillion and ... jumped in the Miroir d'eau in between the Place de la Bourse and riverbank of the Garonne. Merci beaucoup, Katerina!!
P.S. Click picture to see the whole action!

Floating blossom

Some pictures have a certain surreal touch, almost as if they are taken from a fairy tale. The dancing butterflies in Saigon are one example, another one is this picture of a blossom apparently floating above its branch that I took in a small muslim community deep inside the Mekong delta.

Living in the Mekong delta

I am currently working my way through almost 600 pictures from the Mekong delta. The Mekong delta covers a gigantic region and most of the large population (around 17 million people) live at the poverty level. People live mostly in small shacks which are built directly by the many sidearms and channels that form the delta. We travelled the delta on a boat from where you could watch the people living their daily lives - fishing, washing their hair or their kids, eating, sleeping ... In some cases we could literally see into their homes.

Acropolis from Lycabetus

We just came back from Athens, where - once again - we went to the thop of Lycabetus. This is a hill in the center of Athens, north of the Acropolis, which offers in my opinion the most impressive view of Athens. Since I haven't even downloaded the new pictures from my camera here an older view across the city.

To Panyghri

A short time-out from the Vietnam pictures ... Some time ago I submitted a picture to the Lumix award competition, which had the topic 'Visualise music'. Unfortunately, I didn't win anything :( Nevertheless, here is the picture I had submitted. It was taken in the beautiful and bankrupt country of Greece, during a Panyghri - a big religious celebration followed by a night of eating, drinking and dancing - in Ikaria, where we spent our holidays in 2008.

Streets of Hoi An

Three new galleries are up on colors · and · contrasts, covering the central part of both our journey and of Vietnam: Hue, Hoi An and Ho Chi Minh City.

Halong bay

I finally managed to finish and upload the galleries for our trips to the Sapa mountains and the Halong bay. Take a look, I hope you like the new pictures!

Pas de deux in the streets of Saigon

We were having a light lunch in a small café in one of the busy streets of Ho-Chi-Minh-City, formerly called Saigon, when I spotted two butterflies dancing with each other in the middle of the intersection in front of us. Passing cars could only temporarily separate them, as they always found each other again to continue their elegant dance in the middle of the crowded traffig. While I am not completely happy with the picture, it still captures a moment of unexpected beauty in an apparently dull location.

Old & new

During our trip through Vietnam I really had the impression that what we saw was genuine, and not part of an artificially created 'tourist attraction'. However, at the same time we realized, that this will probably not stay like this, as we could feel the growing influence of the west: Versace shops in the cities and announcements for Hilton hotels along the cost indicated that the countrie's charme might soon be spoiled by the influence of western tourism. So go soon!
Todays post is another picture from our 2 days in Hanoi, as I finally finished the first Hanoi gallerie, which can now be visited at the colors · and · contrasts website.

Preparing for the ceremony

One of the best - yet unplanned - experiences of the trip was one morning, in which two local tour guides, whom we had met in their small restaurant, took us with their scooter on a trip around the old emporor's town of Hué. So instead of strolling through the emperor's parks and castles, we crossed through littles villages where the school kids where on their way home, saw some huge cemeteries, local people making conical hats and scented candles, and attended a monk ceremony in a small monastery in the middle of the woods. We did actually see some impressive castle as well, which featured Vietnams longest (stone) snake .... Some of the best hours we spent in this country!

Floating town

Today a picture from the famous Halong Bay, one of Vietnam's Unesco world heritage sites. The weather could have been better, but the sight of hundred of these islands stretched for kilometer after and kilometer was nevertheless impressive. As impressive was to see how many people literally lived on the water - in floating houses, sometimes isolated and sometimes gathered to form small towns with people constantly commuting between the houses in little boats.

Flower Hmong

Well, since the previous image didn't probably give you the feeling of 'literally hundreds of beautifully dressed Flower Hmong', here a another picture from the Bac Ha market that gives you a better idea of what I was describing. As I said - photographer's heaven, so I might post more pictures of this day.

Shy Hmong girls

The second part of our trip through Vietnam led us to the Sapa mountains, northwest of Hanoi. These mountains are mainly famous for the large number of different ethnic minorities - among them various groups of Hmong - who still live in a very traditional way, despite the growing numbers of tourists. We were lucky enough to be able to go to the village of Bac Ha on a sunday, were literally hundreds of beautifully dressed Flower Hmong are holding and visiting the local market. This place was photographers' heaven, and luckily it was one of the few sunny days of our trip, so the colors of their dresses were really shining.

The streets of Hanoi

Finally the first image from our great trip to Vietnam. Since it will take me some time to sort and select from the about 2000 images I brought back (I had probably taken twice as many...), I thought I'll try to post one or two images per week in the blog, before I will manage to upload the galleries.
It was hard to pick the first image - I wanted it to be representative, but that was difficult considering all the things we've seen. Probably the strongest impression though made the streets of Hanoi, were we spend our first days. The crazy traffic, the whole life of the people taking place on the streets, the immediate vicinity of poverty and wealth, all those smells and sights both beautiful and alien to us ... it represented all I had hoped for and found in the old quarter of Hanoi!

Last winter in Göttingen

Happy new year to everyone!
These are our last days here in Göttingen. It's some beautiful snowy winter days - at least for me, Ioanna is enjoying 22°C in Athens. Soon we'll start our trip to Vietnam and then we'll have to move to our new home in Frankfurt during the last days of January. We won't have such a nice view as here, but we'll have a small garden, which should make up for it. I hope many of you are going to visit us there!