Hanoi

I spent all of last week in Hanoi. Although I was not there on holidays, I had time to walk around the city a little bit and take some photos. The one thing that caught my attention is motorcycles, which are used to transport pretty much anything. If you add a somewhat chaotic traffic system, a liberal rule on what constitutes a safe load and how best to keep it in place, it is the perfect mix for some interesting shots.

12 meses

Some time ago I read somewhere that as people grow older, years seem to pass quicker and quicker. Apparently this is so because repetitions are not felt as something new (even if they are not so in the day-to-day detail), so we pay less attention to years where nothing new has happened. This may be so, or not. Maybe I am not old enough for that yet, or maybe this was an odd year.

Looking back at the last 12 months I was actually surprised at how much travelling I have done to unusual places (for me at least), although I have always considered myself not much of a traveller. Even so, I managed to clock 24 flights to 14 airports in 6 different countries. Some flights were bought months in advance. Others were bought the night before. I spent 7 weeks away from home on business travel, and about the same amount away on holidays with my family. I drove cars in both sides of the road in places where I could understand the road signs and took taxis in those cities where I could not read a word. I rushed for flights from a hundred miles away and sat in airports for hours waiting for my flight. Most importantly, I enjoyed my time all along and always tried to find time to take a couple of photos to capture some of the moments I lived so that they could be shared with my family and friends. Some photos were shown in the blog, which went through ups and downs in terms of quantity and quality. Some were shown in my first exhibition, which was well received by friends here in Berlin and, finally, most were kept for my family or simply myself.

And on top of this, there was the excitement and the joy of seeing how our two children grow and start to reach for the world...

Schule

Cuando llegó de su primer día de colegio, le pregunté a mi hija qué tal lo había pasado. Me dijo que muy bien todo pero que estaba un poco disgustada porque ... no había aprendido nada ese día!

Sächsische Schweiz (ii)

Same conditions as in previous post. I programmed the posts about one month ago, while still on holidays. Right now I should be just about to come back home after spending a few days in China and Vietnam (business trip, but hopefully with some time to take photos of these countries, which I am visiting for the first time).

Sächsische Schweiz (i)

It was raining, I had my child on my back, one umbrella on one hand and a cheap compact (PowerShot A570IS) on the other hand. And still the photo came out reasonably well. I suppose on a sunny day it would have been packed with people, so I guess I was still lucky. I would not mind coming back one day with better gear and some time to spare. Beautiful area.

This is a shortcut to somebody with a higher budget and way higher creativity.

Ultimate DM 2010

It´s been a while since I last played Ultimate, but I was close to Jena on the weekend of the german championship (about a month ago) and managed to come round for a couple of hours and see a game or two. I got the decent shot above and two burnt arms before of the sun...

Hochzeit

While walking in one of Weimar´s parks during my holidays, I found this couple having their wedding photo session. They did not seem to mind me taking a few shots, although they probably did not notice that my interest was on the photographer and his crew!


Off-topic update: As it happens from time to time, today somebody from Madrid discovered the blog and spent some time reading it (30+ hits). And then disappeared without a message. Who knows, maybe he/she will come back? Maybe somebody I used to know?

En casa de Schiller