Favourite pictures

I decided to try and choose my favourite picture from each country I have been to. Some of them were terribly easy because I had basically no photos. And then some proved to be extremely hard because I have either been there so many times, lived there or visited for such a long time. There are a few missing at the moment, mainly because I don’t have all my photos here with me. I will update this page as I visit new places or take better pictures .

We took the cable car up the mountain to visit the frigid ice caves of Werfen. Breaking through the cloud bank into sudden sunlight we were treated to a view of mottled mountain tops poking through the top of a rolling sea of fluffy white.

A day trip to Antwerp, this was my first picture of Belgium. The central station was the perfect fusion between modern design and aging grandeur all soaring glass roofs supported by a network of complicated wrought iron patterns seamlessly merging with the original building.

So, I didn’t really plan to got to Bulgaria, just passed through on our trip to get back from Istanbul when all flights were grounded due to the ash cloud. Still, I took the opportunity to get a good look at the place and I liked what I saw.

A voluptuous statue at Vyšehrad cemetery in Prague. She sighs, forever stretching while the leaves shiver in the summer breeze.

Through the window of The Marble Church in Copenhagen the world shimmers, straight lines melting like Daliesque clocks.

Officially my first day of being alone on the Grand Tour. I spent a good four hours wandering around the British museum, at first reading every tag with dedication and by they end drive-by viewing pottery as I tried to see everything. Outside the day was hot, the sun beaming down through triangles as I imagined myself as a child, cosily snuggling into a faded armchair in the rotunda reading room.

I cannot lie. I saw this very image on a poster showing pictures of the doors of Talinn and copied it. Mine was not as good. Yet still, I love the bright colours and dream of having a door as exciting as this one day.

I popped into a traditional Lappish tent at the Santa Claus village in Rovaniemi for a bite to eat. Lunch was salmon cooked over the woodfire in the centre of the tent, smoke curling up through a hole cut at the apex. And the best coffee I have ever tasted, warmly bitter and dark brewed in this sooty, black kettle dangling over the flames.

It was a dank, gloomy morning with freezing fog hanging thick in the air. I was in Toulouse for a numerical modelling workshop, and walking along the canal to get to the university. The world mirrored in the water was strange and eery, yet somehow enticing. As though if I just let myself fall I would go right through and end up on the other side, where everything was leached colourless.

A complete contrast, reflected in the waters of Tuebingen, colourful half-timbered houses glimmer like an impressionistic dream. You can almost see the brushstrokes.

I love this picture for some reason. I took it on the road to Cape Sounion at a small seafood restaurant. It was my first trip to Europe, lugging around an ancient pentax intent on taking artistic black and whites. But the pentax let in a lot of light so I ended up with many photos like this one. Though ruined, something about it is wonderful, like one of those faded postcards with the corners curling up you find pawing through cardboard boxes at the fleamarket. It is from a mysterious place that was never really there.

My second trip to Hong Kong and my second visit to the Big Buddha, this time with Jesper. The time before the day had been clear, deep green mountains in the distance with proud red and yellow flags waving in the breeze. This time it was foggy and peaceful, the shape of the mountain rearing vaguely from the hazy sky, the serene Deva in the foreground humbly making his offering.

A bright, sunny day in Budapest with billowing white clouds and tiles stretched over the roof like a colourful knitted vest.

It almost looks like a scene from a fantasy novel, the tongue of ice slithering down the mountainside, the endless sandur plains stretching into the distance. In southern Iceland we climbed up above the plain so we could view the glacier from above, peering down at the ice, cracked and wrinkled like the paper-thin skin on an aging hand.

The place where the Colosseum doesn’t match up. It was not till my second trip to Rome that I discovered this. It was a sizzling hot day following a tour guide with an furled umbrella firmly clutched in hand, which she did not hesitate to poke a possible pickpockets. The sky was really that blue.

Alvis took us on a whirlwind tour of Latvia, stopping only to “make pictures”. We paused at this beach on the Baltic. The sun was bright but cold, the wind chilling, rippling through the dune grass. The beach is chromakey dreamcoat for me. Listen and maybe you can imagine yourself there.

Not much explanation needed here. This is the only picture I have from Liechtenstein. And of course the castle is covered with scaffolding. Everything always is.

Not a lot of choice here either. The sparkling lights of Monaco stretching into the distance, rising softly above expensive yachts jostling for space in the harbour.

My fourth trip to The Netherlands and finally I managed to coincide with the tulip season. This blushing, pink beauty reminds me of Audrey from Little shop of horrors for some reason… feed me Seymour.

Dalsnibba, high up in the mountains above the Fjord town of Geiranger. The landscape up there is littered with hundreds of cairns and spotted with patchy snow.

Every evening at dusk in Krakow, hundreds of starlings careen around the gothic spires of St Mary’s Cathedral. I probably took twenty pictures to get a good one.

You may have guessed that this is my only photo of Romania.

The hallelujah chorus sky that is so ubiquitous in rainy Scotland. I almost felt like I was being told to climb the illuminated mountain (surely there were wonderful rocks there) but the bus was pulling away and we had to press on.

Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia Cathedral, a more successful black and white from that first Europe trip. I love that the side of the church depicting Jesus’ birth is all rounded, traditional forms, while his death is angular and harsh, drawn out features and hollow eyes.

How terribly difficult to choose a favourite Sweden picture when I have been living here for more than three years. I managed to settle on this one, Brunnsviken at sunset, the fading pink of the sky reflected on the glassy mirror of ice. It was the first time I had ever seen ice that wasn’t covered by snow on a large body of water.

Jungfraujoch, the Top of Europe, we caught the rambling railway up to the mountain, where jagged white and grey peaks rose starkly from the rolling, green hills.

My dad and I took a hot-air balloon flight over Cappadocia in the early hours of the morning. Balloons slowly rose and sank through the sky, weathered valleys and fairy chimneys below, the only sound the intermittent roar of the flame.

After four days of skiing at Mammoth we were ready for a break so we headed out to Mono Lake. Amazing tufa structures rise from the lake bottom, the knobbly lumps of their naked forms rudely exposed by receding waters. The place was starkly beautiful, a labyrinth of towers like sandcastles carefully fashioned by small hands dribbling sandy water.

A proud grandfather introduces us to his first grandson, matching feathers entwined in his soft, blonde curls. We visited Yakel village, high in the mountains where the traditional Ni-Vanuatuan customs are still practiced.

St Paul’s Square was crowded with people, multitudes of nuns, smartly suited business men, children clutching melting ice-creams and the hands of their sunglass-wearing parents. They were waiting for the Pope to make an appearance, and while we waited I tried to take the perfect fountain photo.

So, that’s all for now. You might have noticed a few missing countries (most obviously Australia !). This is because all of my printed photographs are still at home and I don’t have access to them at the moment. They will go up eventually, but probably not till I visit home again. So still to come is Australia, New Zealand and maybe Japan (even though I was only there for one night I probably have a photo or two). And of course more will come as I visit more countries!