We left Rishikesh a little too late, had to wait a little too long for the taxi to arrive and there was too much traffic, so we missed our overnight train to Jaipur. Stranded in Haridwar, we managed to find a travel agent who booked us on the next train back to Delhi and on the first train to Jaipur the morning after. So we ended up in Delhi one more time and got to spend the night at a hotel instead of a train, which wasn’t too bad after all. Jaipur was the first of our three stops in Rajasthan.

After Delhi and the Taj Mahal, we hopped on a train and enjoyed a comfortable train ride, followed by a rather uncomfortable and very scary nighttime taxi ride, to Rishikesh, a place that became very popular around the world when the Beatles joined an ashram here in the late sixties. Today, it’s known for its countless ashrams/yoga academies as well as a very spiritual place in general, lying next to the «World’s most sacred river», the Ganges.

Another year has flown by and once again, I’m late with my flashback sort of post on here. I haven’t been photographing much lately. Instead, my focus was on another project-come-business of mine: Drip Roasters. I started a coffee roasting company together with my brother Dennys, which means we pretty much worked day and night to get our coffees to taste the way we wanted them to and to start a company and create a brand from scratch. But this post isn’t about the last few months only, it’s about 2018. And I did a good many other things in this crazy year, too. As anticipated, I did spend (much) more time traveling compared to 2017. A little too much, […]

We initially planned a trip to Japan on our way back from Hawaii in early spring, making it a round-the-world trip. However, we had to change plans and fly back the other way around, postponing our trip to Japan by a few weeks. So by the beginning of June, we finally left for Japan after spending a bit over a month at home. On the road again! (Or in the air, rather.) We had been to Tokyo a year and a half earlier and absolutely loved it, but we hadn’t seen anything else of Japan. This time, besides Tokyo, we were to visit the two small towns Hakone and Yamanakako in the Fuji Five Lakes region, close to the beautiful symmetrical volcano, as well as Kyoto.

When the tickets went live for this year’s Traveling Light, I didn’t hesitate and booked my spot as soon as possible. Traveling Light is a gathering for photographers passionate about film photography. I wrote a few words about it on this blog last year. This year’s event was even better! It was a perfect mix of inspiring keynote presentations held by speakers from all kinds of different styles and genres, workshops with some of the industry’s best and most experienced photographers, delicious food, a few parties, and a whole lot of side activities.

In September 2017, the guys who run the photography podcast Graincast initiated a 365 photo project. The idea was basically to shoot film for a full 365 days without being able to see the resulting pictures. After a year, one would develop all film rolls and finally be able to look at the photos. 49 photographers took part in the challenge, each participating in a somewhat different way, creating their own rules. I decided that my rules were to take at least one portrait per week with my old Pentax K1000 on Kodak Tri-X 400 film.

We flew from San Francisco to Maui after a week. We weren’t able to rent a car because my license had been stolen along with my daypack in Mexico. This, along with the not-so-great public transport on the island and the location of the exorbitantly overpriced apartment we rented, led to us not seeing a whole lot of Maui at all. We went to the beach once or twice and spent what felt like most of our time Skype-calling several car rental and car sharing companies and getting frustrated because we couldn’t really go anywhere. At least, the weather wasn’t great either so we didn’t miss that much. I took one single photo on Maui, which is why I’m skipping […]

It was my first time in San Francisco, second time for Seraina – she’d once visited the city with her uncle when she was a child. The city was everything I expected and more. Buildings and streets were beautiful, it was rainy and rather cool at first (though we got quite some sun a few days later). We ate like kings and queens for a full week, coffee was top-notch, people looked very normal. Our Airbnb was a cozy room in huge, old, beautiful apartment heavy with Asian antiques.

I post photos of Bern every 6-12 months, so I’m now adding the months the photos were taken in to the title of the posts. Very important information, right? Anyways, these 27 photos are from the second half of 2017 and most of them were taken either at (my former) home – a great, large duplex apartment that I shared with friends for a little more than four years – or on the route Seraina and I often chose when going for a walk through the city.

I was planning on posting 2017’s best of or flashback post earlier than last year’s. Instead, I’m posting it much later, how about that! 2017 seemed like the fastest year in my life. It was the first full year of full-time self-employment for me and my office was still my bedroom in a shared apartment. It definitely won’t be next year, though. There were many highlights, many new plans made, lots of wonderful places visited, delicious food tasted, and great things experienced.