I know, I intended to shoot only black and white this year. But I admit, I just couldn’t resist taking a few colorful shots of Spring. I tried in black and white, and I’m sure I’ll get some good black and white springy shots eventually, but right now I simply wanted to capture the beauty of Spring 🙂
Blue sky, warm sunshine, pretty white flowers and yes, Jack is back 🙂 Maybe he will introduce me to his new family again this year, we’ll see.
Art… Â No matter what it is about, when you look at it, you either love it or hate it. Or even worse, you look at it and go “Meh”, you couldn’t care less.
Well, “Meh” definitely won’t happen with this piece of art the city of Zürich got itself here. For once, it’s simply too big to be over looked. It is – a huge, massive, rusty crane.
When I first heard about the project, I was surprised and like a lot of people had my doubts. After all… It won’t come cheap, an old crane isn’t really a piece of beauty and it definitely isn’t art.
But coming from Rostock, a big harbor, Â it is a symbol for one longing everybody in Switzerland has, a symbol for the one thing this beautiful little country is missing. There is no sea at our borders. And god, do we love to be at the sea! This endless horizon. That smell. Â And the ships vanishing in the distance…
And now it is here. Â A little, well, not so little symbol of our desire. It is bit, it is rusty, it is ugly but you know what?
I kinda like it 🙂
As much as some of us like Winter, I think it is safe to say that we all love it when Spring comes back. The dark long nights are coming to an end, colors are coming back into our life and, in general, we just feel happier again.
But how do we know Spring is coming? We could of course  check our calendar, but that’s just lame. There are some universal signs. Let me show you mines.
The annual bike show
Yes, it is always at the end of winter.  And it also marks the time in the year when men feeling their mid life crisis start to think about doing wild things. Like buying a Harley. But thats a different story.
Street Caffees
We all like to start the day with a nice coffee and our favorite news paper. Â And there can be no argument that Winter is over when people do this outside. They might catching a cold doing this, but again, that’s a different story.
Easter Bunny
The classic fight between Winter and Spring, Easter Bunny versus snow. Usually the bunny wins, only to be … uhmm…
Can we agree that this is a different story?
Flowers
Well, that’s the obvious sign. Flowers everywhere, screaming “Spring is here” and throwing pollen at everybody who happens to have allergies.  And no, that’s not another story. This would then be another sure sign that winter is over and Spring is here.  🙂
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys were so kind and produced a 2013 annual report for my blog. I want to thank all of you who take the time to visit this little place of mine on the internet. I hope you enjoy the ride and I promise there will always be something new to see when you come back once in a while.
Happy New Year everybody!
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,900 times in 2013. If it were a cable car, it would take about 32 trips to carry that many people.
So you wonder. It’s summer I say and slap some snow covered landscape in your face? Well, you know, I think we deserve it. As it is a really nice Summer. A really hot summer. And so, what better to do than remembering the time when the world was covered in snow? You know, as in using your mental air condition.
Now I’m not complaining, mind you. As, back in Spring, which was very rainy and cold, I told everybody I knew that I would punch everybody who complains about heat in Summer in the face. And I don’t want to punch my face. No Sir. I’m just…. missing Winter 😉
Sometimes I can be such a mean bastard.
So, on one of the first nice summer days I decided to do a hike in the mountains. Just to get away from the crowd, noise and heat of the city (Note: I don’t complain about the heat. Oh no, never. Not after this lousy Spring).
A really nice hike up a steep little mountain where I stopped to have lunch. Shortly after, this couple with their Golden Retriever showed up spoiling the meditational mood of just me, the mountain and mother nature. And the little devil on my left shoulder started to whisper in my ear, reminding me of a ball I had in my back pack and how much fun it would be if I…
Go buddy, fetch the ball!
Footnote: No dogs were harmed taking this picture 😉
I don’t know if you have read Michael Ende’s Neverending Story (Die unendliche Geschichte). One of the characters in the book is a so called racing snail. Which is basically a really really fast huge snail.
I’ve always thought, these snails are just fiction, something Michael made up as it is good fun to imagine a snail that’s faster than a racing horse. Well, until I met one of it’s smaller siblings yesterday on my way to work.
It was a beauty, lit by morning light. I lifted my camera, had the autofocus to lock on the eyes and just when I pressed the shutter it – moved. So now you know why the eyes are out of focus.
Or I’m just too stupid to operate autofocus correctly, you decide 🙂
Oh, and if you have not read the book, I really highly recommend it!
So here we are. It is the Easter weekend. Spring is in the air and Winter is over, right?
Well not quite. The whole week we had snow showers and even yesterday night, we had some pretty heavy snowfall. But then maybe, this is how weather at Easter should be like? Remember the tradition to paint easter eggs in bright colors before hiding them in the garden? Well, maybe our ancestors did that, so they could find the eggs more easily after hiding them in the snow?
Anyway, I’m waiting for Spring here. Desperately. Maybe posting a spring photo will help? It’s worth a try, dont you think?
Well, lately, for the lack of better subjects and ideas, I decided to go for little things and do some macro photography.
And guess what, I think, I found the forest where the fairies live! It’s really tiny, so I guess the fairies are even smaller than I thought and that’s why you couldn’t see them. But I heard their music, trust me!
So, it is January, early January. It is cold outside, there is frost on the cars parked outside in the morning and the air smells of snow. Right?
Not really. Last weekend we had 23 degrees Celsius in southern Switzerland and, although it is not that warm here, it really starts to feel like spring. Just look at these shots I took on Sunday:
P.S. We now got snow on the hills surrounding Zurich this morning. Maybe there is hope. Although… probably not for the early flowers….
streetpixels 