The Bernina-Express,

the little red train between

St Mortiz and Zürich. 

The most beautiful experience of the Alps: From the high towering glaciers of the mountains down to the swaying palms of Italy, the highest mountain railway in the Alps provides a link between northern and southern Europe. It does so in the most wonderful way imaginable, on a railway line that coexists in perfect harmony with its glorious mountain setting. The train makes short work of the 55 Tunnels, 196 bridges and slopes of up to 70 millimetres per metre of incline that are found along its route. The physical high-point of the RhB is Ospizio Bernina, at 2,253 metres above sea level. 

 Engadine

Switzerland

Swiss trains

Wagnerian sights

on the way to

St Moritz.

FAR AWAY PLACES 

Kuala Lumpur

On the way to Cebu

I came to Cebu island in the Philippines to photograph a book on the beach life

as an assignment from a Philippino business woman who also ran the local newspaper.

The book was never published but I did all the photos and spent a very happy time there.

Keeping an illustrated scrapbook was a convenient way to remember and edit what I was shooting. 

No digital nor polaroids.

 FAR AWAY PLACES

Ferdinand Magellan was killed by the local Chief Lapu Lapu on the beach of Mactan near Cebu City in 1521.

" 8 episodes in the life of a sailor ".About the spirit of the sea, a friendly follower of this blog recently placed an order for a print of a sailor saying she had a thing for the sea. That is something we have in common. I'm haunted by the sea and had a very romantic idea of life at sea until I experienced it. Though I have countless photos on the subject, here is a collection of sketches I did almost 15 years ago after my first transatlantic. Looking at them again, reminds me that whatever you do at sea, you do on a moving floor and like my fellow sailor once said 

" Quand on est en bateau, on est souvent sur l'eau. "

Back to India. Doctor Hazzanuddin Ahmed is a distinguished muslim scholar, a pious man who keeps his wife and daughters in strict purdah and helps his guests with home made cakes engraved with verses from the Quran. A quiet man who lives in his ancestral home in the old city of Hyderabad. This is not the India we fantasize about, no women wrapped in colorful saris, no men wearing dhotis, no namaste. Its about as common as an old irish mansion lived in by an old gentleman. The spectacular we expect is often only an inch away from the cliché when plain modesty is far truer to human destiny.

Rural India. Gokarn used to be a small village off the tracks. I could sit forever watching the brahmins walk up and down the main street between the temple and the sea.