Today I’d like to introduce Nicola Tristan to you! He was born just before Christmas and is the younger brother of Fiorello, I photographed about one year ago (see this blog post). It was a special pleasure for me to meet the parents again and especially Fiorello who has grown a lot in the meantime. I’m very thankful for their trust to call me again to also photograph their youngest son. It’s a sad story that shortly after the baby session with Fiorello last year it was found that he suffers from a serious disease. I was thinking a lot about this since his mum told me back then. I was really amazed to see now how everything has grown, their family, their love and Fiorello. I wish them all the strengh they need in difficult times, and a lot of love and wonderful moments with their family.

I hope everyone spent a great time with their families and friends over Christmas and New Year. Now the new year has begun and is moving on fast to become another exciting year! After last year’s huge worldwide economic problems the future can just look brighter. However, if you’re going to get married this year it will become one of the most exciting years of your life! For the rest of your life you will look back and remember the blue sky on the wedding day, how the sunlight hit the windows of the church and let the smiling bride glow in this terrific white wedding dress, the little girl that was singing in a church that seemd to hold its breath and how the smiling couple left the church with a whoop of joy of their family and friends.

The beginning of the year is also the time of all the wedding fairs here in Switzerland. This market was exploding in the last years, culminating in 2 different wedding fairs taking place in Zurich on the same day last year. Crazy. I guess everybody is happy now that we are back to normal and this weekend everybody, the couples and the vendors, can concentrate on just one wedding fair in Zurich. I will visit it myself tomorrow, not just to see what’s going on in the industry, but mainly to meet good friends, wedding photographers, coordinators, graphic artists. A great opportunity to connect! Hope to see you there!

Hochzeitsmesse Zürich

And if you are still thinking about if all this social media stuff like Facebook and Twitter is worth it, read this amazing story of Keith how Twitter let him connect with people he didn’t know in Guatemala and how they became friends.

So, my recommendation for 2010: Get you a Twitter account and follow Keith Ferrazzi @keithferrazzi

Have a great 2010!

We spent a great time chatting, eating & drinking, with David’s photo booth and Jeanine’s Xmas cookies :-) Thanks for the help to make this lil’ GTG a success! It was definitely not the last WCS event. Stay tuned!

In the picture: Beat Mumenthaler, Steffi Greter, Daniel Zihlmann, Jeanine Linder, Richard Overtoom, Philippe Wiget, Andreas Feusi, Katja, Nadia, Daniel Knecht, David Dolder, Adrian Giger and Peter Sturn

You’re a great model, Elin! Keep it rockin’!

I really love the mountains here in Switzerland. So it was a special pleasure for me to drive today early in the morning up to Gstaad to photograph a quick engagement session with Emily & Philip before their wedding this weekend. We were lucky enough to get half an hour of some relaxed shooting before it started to rain. Didn’t matter, we were done with shooting and spent the rest of the time to go through the details of this awesome wedding to come. As Emily & Philip come from New York City there will be a lot of guests coming from all around the world. Exciting!

I can understand that tennis is Philip’s favorite sport :-)

As it was a rainy day there was no one playing tennis. So the tennis court provided the perfect space to practice once more for the first dance.

We had a lot of fun today :-) Thanks Emily & Philip to share it with me!

My favorite shot from today’s engagement session with Muriel and Alessandro in Bern – doesn’t need more words.

When it was about to decide where we are going to photograph the engagement session of Bianca and Shoibi, it was an easy question for them. It had to be on the Mainau Island in Germany. It was the place where Shoibi had proposed for her, right where we took the first picture (above). The trip to the island was a birthday surprise for Bianca and so was the ring in Shoibi’s pocket. After several minor complications he finally managed to ask the question and present the ring to her. Needless to say what Bianca’s answer was :-)

When we returned on a Monday afternoon in July, it was really hot and we got bitten by mosquitoes a lot while we wandered over the island. Nevertheless we all enjoyed the summer day in this great place and had a lot of fun. Sure this will be another awesome wedding this year!

Vanessa and Luigi were a bit nervous about their engagement session. Because they thought they are not good in posing, don’t know how to “act” in front of the camera. But that’s actually not what an engagement session is about. It’s all about being yourself. Just enjoy the photo session and have fun!

And they were good at THAT, as you can see! Thanks for being my models ;-) Was great having fun with you!

… playing the air guitar :-)

When I visited New York City last month it was a pleasure to meet some new and old friends. Thanks to Twitter and Facebook I knew that Beth Jennings, a photographer friend from Australia, was at the same time in the city. Cool, what a great opportunity to finally meet her in real life after connecting by comments on my blog! Thanks Beth, to join the ride to Staten Island! It was fun!

And then it was also time to meet Martina, a former colleague when I worked as a picture editor at the Neue Zürcher Zeitung in Zurich, Switzerland. Wow, that was a long time ago, I must say. We actually left the newspaper at the same day, so we shared our aperitif to say goodbye to our workmates.

Of course I had to visit Martina and her husband Barnaby in Brooklyn, where they live for several years now. As I am not only a wedding, but also a baby photographer, I absolutely had to meet Camilla, their 4 month old baby.

When I travel I really like to travel light as I walk around the whole day to explore a city. So my favorite travel cam is the iPhone (3G at that time) and my “beast” (the Canon 5D Mark II) normally has to stay in the hotel room.

This was the first iPhone shot of Camilla:

And here the view from Brooklyn to Manhattan:

As I thought it would be a great thing to give the proud parents some “real” photographs of Camilla, I returned the next day with my roller case, “fully loaded”. It was worth it! And Martina, thanks for the Brooklyn tour, I really enjoyed it! I hope to be back in NYC soon!