The Constellation

I took this photo in the summer of 2010 in Stockholm during a ride on a small ship from our hotel towards the center of the city. This ship was leaving the dock, and we felt quite small as we made our way around. As can be seen, this is the Constellation (the ship's full name is the Celebrity Constellation) and she even has her own Wikipedia page. During the summer months, when this photo was taken, she travels the Baltic sea, during the autumn she's in the Mediterranean and in the winter she's in the Carribbean. Here are two more photos from this same trip to Stockholm - one is a shot of the town around midnight, and another with a couple of pretty Swedish girls.

Reflections of climbing

Taken in Vipava this weekend in the beautiful, warm sunshine.

Imposing

 

Taken in Shanghai last week, this is the Shangai Art Museum, though it also houses a restaurant on the fifth floor (which is the reason I was there in the first place). I found Shanghai interesting because it's such an intense mix of the old and the new. You can easily have a traditional Chinese building next to a huge, modern skyscraper, with a European style building next to that. 

The overall feeling in Shanghai is that it's big - very big. The city has a population of over twenty million (and that's just the official number), and the area is about a third of the size of Slovenia (a good six thousand square kilometers). I loved it, even though I could not imagine living there for any extended period of time. 

Just to note, the photo above was taken hand-held with a fixed 28 mm F/2,8 lens. Shanghai is actually very, very bright, especially at night. It has quite a bit of smog, which tends to reflect the light back down. Because of this, I imagine one never sees the stars (kind of sad, when you think about it).

Swan

This beautiful swan was relaxing in Zurich, where I recently spent a couple of hours during a stop-over on my way to Shanghai (yes, photos from there are on their way). This is in the center of the city, where the Limmat river runs from Lake Zurich. The light was pretty nice, since it was still quite early in the morning and the autumn sun hadn't risen too high yet. I had a (borrowed) telephoto lens which allowed me to take this tight shot from quite far away - I think this gives the photo a more intimate feel.