Indian Summer on the Lake

It was an unseasonable 28 Deg. C when we visited family in Switzerland during Sept. 2019.

Home to just 18,500 people, and just 25kms North of Geneva, Nyon is famous for it’s historic Château de Nyon and Roman monuments dating back to the age of Julius Ceasar.

Locals and tourists alike were seeking refuge in the cool waters of Lake Geneva (known as Lac Léman to Francophiles) - some leaping from an old concrete diving platform that appeared to be floating on the surface of the still blue water some 20m off-shore.

For those wanting to explore the lake region, there are a fleet of pre-1930’s Belle Époque paddle steamboats that traverse the area offering up to 850 passengers on single journey, old-fashioned 1st or 2nd class ferry rides. If you have more time, there are longer lunch or dinner cruises that take in breath-taking destinations such as the jazz-festival famous Montreux, or Evian (home of the well-known water brand) in France.

We decided to take the option of a one-hour ride across to the romantic medieval village of Yvoire (on the French side of the lake) for lunch. A return trip costs about CHF 70 or NZ$110 pp, which wasn’t cheap, but the views of the Alps from on the lake, and the charm of seeing the exposed workings of the steamer were all part of the experience.

The carless town of Yvoire has a permanent population of just 800, with a written history dating back as far as the 1300’s. We spent a few hours meandering around it’s well preserved, narrow cobblestoned streets - captivated by a series of small shops and galleries, flowers overflowing from every balcony window sill. Of course, all of this high-altitude lake air soon had the stomachs rumbling..

While tempted by the favourite local dish of ‘filets de perche’ we decided to seat ourselves in the shaded courtyard of a quaint little place to enjoy, a very well-priced, delicious and authentic crêpe coupled with a glass of Rosé de Provence.

On our way back to the ferry, we took in two prominent local landmarks. The beautiful Church St. Pancras and it’s gleaming stainless steel clad, onion-shaped steeple, (recently refurbished from it’s former 1850’s tin) and Chateau d’Yvoire, in its commanding position right on the lake-edge.

It was a really special day out, and a wonderful opportunity to test out my newly acquired Leica Q2. The 28mm f1.7 lens was ideal for tight spaces, as well as capturing the wider context of the postcard-like scenery. With its 47Mp sensor, there is also plenty of resolution for post-cropping should this be required.

Dharavi

Dharavi is in Mumbai, India. The second-largest slum in the continent of Asia, and the third-largest in the world, it is home to over a million inhabitants in the confirms of just 2.1 sq km.  Here, people live and work in very confined spaces - kids attend school, and they can even go to a cinema cafefully set up under large tarpaulins. This photograph taken on a four-hour walking tour, shows workers who pull apart keyboards, car parts, and toys to salvage, (amoungst other materials), plastics that are broken down into small chips - washed, and bagged up ready for manufacturing reuse.  The organisation in this place was truly fascinating.

Teatro Colon →

The Teatro Colón (Spanish: Columbus Theatre) is the main opera house in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is ranked the third best opera house in the world by National Geographic, and is acoustically considered to be amongst the five best concert venues in the world. The other venues are Berlin's Konzerthaus, Vienna's Musikverein, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and Boston's Symphony Hall.

The present Colón replaced an original theatre which opened in 1857. Towards the end of the century it became clear that a new theatre was needed and, after a 20-year process, the present theatre opened on 25 May 1908, with Giuseppe Verdi's Aida.

The Teatro Colón was visited by the foremost singers and opera companies of the time, who would sometimes go on to other cities including Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.

After this period of huge international success, the theatre's decline became clear and plans were made for massive renovations. After an initial start of works to restore the landmark in 2005, the theatre was closed for refurbishment from October 2006 to May 2010. It re-opened on 24 May 2010, with a programme for the 2010 season.

Robert Capa →

His work in this medium is what I would call “observational” colour photography. The images are best when the subject is intimate, human and ‘on set’, preferably using a limited palette with splashes of subdued colour – such as in the gorgeous Model wearing Dior on the banks of the Seine, Paris, France (1948), the delicate Woman on the beach, Biarritz, France (1951), and the simpatico duo of Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre on the set of ‘Beat the Devil’, Ravello, Italy (April 1953) and Truman Capote and Jennifer Jones on the set of ‘Beat the Devil’, Ravello, Italy (April 1953). The photographs of Ava Gardner on set are also cracking images for their vitality and overall balance, as is the almost monochromatic Gen X girl, Colette Laurent, at the Chantilly racetrack, France (1952). Other ensemble tableaux might as well have been shot in black and white, such as Spectators at the Longchamp Racecourse, Paris, France (c. 1952).

Decisive Moment →

Henri Cartier-Bresson’s contribution to his medium is immeasurable. From his determinedly humanist approach to capturing a scene, to a profound advancement of street photography, the French image-maker transformed photojournalism over the course of his long and prolific life and left behind a body of work incomparable in depth and breadth. Perhaps most influential of all, however, is his belief in the decisive moment – that one split second in which one captures a minute human detail distilling the importance of human experience. “Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing,” he once said, “and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again”. 

The Salt of the Earth

An amazing story... highly recommend.

Salgado was born on February 8, 1944 in Aimorés, in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. After a somewhat itinerant childhood, Salgado initially trained as an economist, earning a master’s degree in economics from the University of São Paulo in Brazil. He began work as an economist for the International Coffee Organization, often traveling to Africa on missions for the World Bank, when he first started seriously taking photographs. He chose... to abandon a career as an economist and switched to photography in 1973, working initially on news assignments before veering more towards documentary-type work. Salgado initially worked with the photo agency Sygma and the Paris-based Gamma, but in 1979, he joined the international cooperative of photographers Magnum Photos. He left Magnum in 1994 and with his wife Lélia Wanick Salgado formed his own agency, Amazonas Images, in Paris, to represent his work. He is particularly noted for his social documentary photography of workers in less developed nations.

Brian Brake →

Brian Brake (1927–1988) was New Zealand’s best-known and most-successful photographer. His career spanned the golden age of photojournalism and with his camera he roamed the globe. He is remembered today for his rare photographs of communist China in the 1950s, photo essays such as Monsoon, his travel work, and his iconic images of people such as Pablo Picasso, Chairman Mao Zedung and Queen Elizabeth.

Ans Westra Gallery →

The work of prominent New Zealand photographer Ans Westra will be on display in a new private art space opening in Wellington soon.

She sparked controversy in the 1960s with her depiction of Maori life in the school bulletin "Washday at the Pa", and has captured the essence of New Zealand ever since with her photographs. 

Now Dutch-born Ans Westra's photography will have a permanent home on Wellington's Cuba Street. 

http://suite.co.nz/answestra/

Peter Black →

This is the first blog post about one of a few favourite New Zealand photographers - Peter Black.  His photos, especially some of the early Black & Whites, capture 'real world' images of regular life of Kiwis at the time.

I was born in 1948 in Christchurch New Zealand. In 1973, wanting to make sure I could work my newly purchased duty free Pentax spotmatic, I took my veryfirst photograph. Stepping out of the shop in Brisbane with a roll of black and white film in the camera I photographed a family of three newspaper sellers. It looks uncannily like my work many years later.

The film was developed by the local chemist, checked and forgotten about as I travelled on a two year backpacking odyssey through Asia, taking tourist snaps.....
 

Gruyères, Switzerland

The Greyerzer (Gruyère) region, with its rolling green landscape and the peaks of the Fribourg Pre-Alps, is home to the world-famous Gruyère cheese. The picture-book little medieval town of Gruyères is perched atop a small hill.

I was lucky enough to visit this settlement in November 2014, and was blown away by the picturesque and original nature of the all of the buildings and surrounding landscape.  The only obvious deviation was the fantastic Giger Museum and Bar, tastfully nestled among the centruies old, cobbled laneways..

http://www.hrgigermuseum.com/index2.php?option=tour