Category: Europe
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The universe in a forest
The universe in a forest I took this picture in the same forest as last week’s pictures. I was intrigued by the lit up green patches – leaves and reflections of leaves – in the middle of this very dark pool of water. But only when seeing the photo afterwards on the screen I started…
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Primaeval forests
Primaeval forests Streams and pools of water in deep, dark forests heighten their primaeval atmosphere. It takes my thoughts back to ancient times, hundreds of millions of years ago, when life originated on our planet; life that slowly evolved since then. In the right corner of the photo one can see a part of my…
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Coincidence
Coincidence I walk under a porch towards a square and see a tree. The porch neatly frames the tree. A woman crosses the square and something I can’t see catches her eye. She slows down, stops, one foot in front of the other, and takes a picture. My eye, the woman, the tree: three points…
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ENOIKIAZETAI
ENOIKIAZETAI In the spring of 2013 I happened to stay for a day or two in Livadia, a medium-sized town in Greece, in the vicinity of Mount Parnassos. I had time to explore the city and it struck me that the cafes and terraces were teeming with people, young and old. “They don’t let themselves…
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The time path
The time path At the beginning of this millennium the Swiss city of Neuchâtel laid out a path through time in the nearby woods – Le Sentier du Temps. Its starting point was meant to mark the origin of our planet Earth and the end point our present time. Each step of one meter was…
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Equestrian statues
Equestrian statues Statues of national heroes on horseback, I don’t think much of them. Not of the statues, nor of the heroes. They generally make me yawn with boredom, or at best incite me to ridicule. So when I saw this equestrian statue in Vienna, I felt an urge to search for the right angle…
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Kind-hearted nationalism
Kind-hearted nationalism Swiss alpenhorns are relics of the past. Just like the smoke signals of Red Indians, they once were used to communicate swiftly with inhabitants of nearby valleys and mountain slopes, long before the invention of the telephone. But their main purpose seems to have been for herdsmen to call their free-grazing cattle back…
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Ah … Holidays!
Ah … Holidays! Sometimes you receive a picture postcard – although less and less in this digital age – that arouses deep inside you an instant longing to be there; to see the scenery with your own eyes; to take it in with all your senses. That is of course the whole purpose of a…
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Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari
Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari Popular belief or the folklore of faith is, in general, what religion means to the common man. It is its most widespread manifestation, not only in Catholicism, but in other religions as well. There’s a lot of suffering in the world and people are often subjected to great stress, either…
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Treasure-house Venice
Treasure-house Venice One of the nice things of the Italian pavilion at the 2011 Biennale in Venice was the continuity one experienced when stepping out of the exhibition venue into the different nooks and corners of this always enchanting city. Both inside and outside one felt surrounded by the same mixture of folkloric frivolity and…
καιρός remembered 