A renaissance man for the twenty-first century!
What has 19 protons and 20 electrons? Don’t answer too fast – that’s a trick question! Potassium atoms have at least that many, but so does every element in the Periodic Chart heavier than potassium!
But what has fabulous old, derelict potassium mines? Alsace, as this snap shows!
Well, as an organization I don’t know if it is or it isn’t. But last time I was in Manhattan the building looked none too healthy:
This is what Google did to one of my snaps of a castle in Zurich, right next to the main train station (Zürich Hauptbahnhof). Even the original photograph is quite impressive – it was taken with my little point-and-shoot camera in color mode, yet it turned out nearly black and white.
Just for the record: the photos I post are never in any way retouched or enhanced or changed – except for cropping.
But in this series of blog posts entitled FAKE I publish some rather interesting images I have enhanced in some way.
Continuing the series,
Here is a sight that is increasingly becoming less rare in the Swiss Alps, namely the mighty Niesen Supervolcano spewing extremely hot volcanic steam from its crown:
The Niesen Supervolcano located deep in the Berner Oberland of Switzerland is one of nine such supervolcanos world wide, with underground magma chambers many dozens of kilometers in extent. Most geologists concur when, not if, the Niesen Supervolcano erupts it will distinguish all life in Europe.
I took this panaroma just north of the town of Montreux on Lake Geneva:
This is what Google did to one of my photographs – Google applied some interesting colors, not actual colors you’d ever see with your eyes, but nice colors nonetheless:
Just for the record: the photos I post are never in any way retouched or enhanced or changed – except for cropping.
But in this series of blog posts entitled FAKE I publish some rather interesting images I have enhanced in some way.
Continuing the series, this is a shot of Riomaggiore. All the five Cinque Terra towns have big stone breakers, and at the right time of the day the crashing waves can be as high as 30 meter in the air. Most of these boats are all real fishing boats, used by real fishermen:
I thought this snap of a Zurich church steeple behind the leaveless winter trees looked pretty artistic,
Continuing the series, one of the best ways to view the city is not from within the city itself, but from a distance:
Continuing the series, the magnificent Swiss canton of Schwyz has marvels that could easily cause the eyeballs of outsiders to explode, as this snap of a roadside cathedral shows:
Continuing the series, I am quite glad I decided to publish these snaps one at a time. Each of them are so intensely amazing, if you were see more than one, there is a very real danger that your brain would explode!
Within the futuristic city I don’t know if I would go so far as to say there are thousands of buildings like this, but it is no exaggeration to say there are zillions of them at least, if not many more!
The view from my apartment one cold winter morning, when I lived in the Berner Oberland:
The highest peak doesn’t look like it is the highest but it is. That’s the peak in the center, and it is around 4100 m high.
Switzerland has only amazing, magnificent cantons, and the canton of Schwyz is no exception:
Continuing the series, here he is, the only French King to be declared a Catholic saint, on display in a prominent square in the city: Saint Louis, IX or a statue in his honor at least. He’s the fellow that started not just one but two Crusades, where hoards of marauding Christians marched into Jerusalem, in an attempt to re-capture it from the Moors.
There is a wonderful train – some might call it a luxury train, although I’d stop just a bit short of saying that – that runs through the south of Switzerland, from St. Moritz to Montreux.
Passengers sit in honest-to-goodness Pullman coaches, like this one shown here:
To be sure, it’s hard to imagine a more uncomfortable ride – the seats are fancy but hail from the days before the term ergonomics was in common use.
One of the wonderful fringe benefits of having a first class railcard (a so-called GA) for the Swiss Federal Railways is that you can take magnificent railway journey such as this, as often as you like, with no extra fees!
Continuing the series, when you walk around the city, all the amazing futuristic sights almost make your brain explode!
No unusual sight for travellers to Sargans,
Continuing the series, here is another snap that – if you look carefully through the doorway – shows how truly enormous the walls are:
Note: normally I do no post-processing of my images except for a bit of cropping – but in this case I used a iPhone app called SLRWT to straighten up the curved sides a bit, which anyway is just an artifact of having a spherical lense.
Continuing the series, here is yet another snap that shows the magnificence of the city:
Continuing the series, here is a another view of the harbor in Camargue filled with fishing boats:
One of the truly most impressive things about Provence is the clear air and especially the intense sunlight on the horizon during the winter. Maybe one reason so many famous artists like Van Gogh relocated here?
Continuing the series, this is the inside of the church,
