Winter is cold, grey, wet and doesn’t really make you happy as a photographer if you are living in the midlands and not in the mountains of Switzerland. But eventually it’s giving you this golden light on a wonderful sunny day…

It was a busy day two weeks ago when I got a phone call and didn’t have time to pick up the phone immediately. Later checking my voice mail I heard a familiar voice. It was Franziska.

Franziska is the mother of Lea, the baby I photographed in early 2009. And as I guessed now, she wanted to ask me if I would like to photograph the newest family member, Aline. Of course I was very happy and curious to meet Aline! It’s always a wonderful thing if you don’t meet a family only once, but have the chance to accompany them for a longer time. No matter if it’s for a wedding or for family pictures.

Aline has now about the same age than Lea had when I photographed her. Though she’s a lot calmer than her sister. But that’s OK for the photographer as it makes focusing a bit easier ;-) Aline did great and had a lot of power before she finally got tired. We spent a wonderful morning together.

When I have time it’s always fun to second shoot a wedding with friends. This weekend I spent in Solothurn with Jeanine & Philippe. Although it was a rainy day for once, we were still lucky to enjoy a mostly dry morning with the couple shots in the city. Being the 2nd or even 3rd photographer at a wedding is a great experience. You can always pick up something from another photographer. And as you’re not the principal photographer to cover the event, you can get a different view on the day.

It’s this time of the year again. December. Christmas coming soon. Time to spend with your family and friends. Time for traditions.

One tradition I started last year is to invite my wedding photographer friends from all over Switzerland for our annual Christmas dinner in Berne – the Wedding Crashers Switzerland Xmas Splash ‘10. We spent a wonderful evening at the restaurant Altes Tramdepot Bern with good food, some drinks and a fun little Pocketbooth app on our iPhones ;-) The freshly baked cupcakes we did with the Cookie Chicks Jeanine, Nadja and Karin at the pre-event were delicious and so were the home-made roasted almonds from Stephanie - yummy! I’m very happy to see the network and friendships grow. It has been a great year, thanks ya’ll!

In the picture (or not), in order of appearance: Nadja Oeler, Andreas Feusi, Philippe Wiget, Richard Overtoom, Katharina Wernli, Urs Anderegg, Ruggero De Pellegrini, Tobias Schmid, Daniel Daeppen, Stephanie Greter, Karin Näf, Jeanine Linder, Colette Dewan, Karin Vonow, Ildiko Varga, Daniel Knecht, Ilsuk Sun, Matthew Anderson

More to come.

After a (long) while of sweating Jannis finally gave up and went to sleep. Now it was getting at least a little bit easier for the photographer and I was able to capture my favorite image of the day.

Welcome to the world, Jannis!

Just a quick post of yesterday’s baby session with lovely Andrin. Being 4 weeks old he was hungry during the whole shoot and after a while of eating and modeling for the photographer he went into sleep mode :-) Thanks for sharing some time with me, Andrin. Welcome to the world!

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