It’s been quite some time since I’ve updated this site, so I figured it was time for a redesign. I had pretty high hopes for Photosomnia back when I created it, but unfortunately it’s taken a backseat to my daily photoblog over at www.shuttermaki.com. Hopefully this will help breathe some new life into it, and motivate me to update it a little more often. To be honest, this site has taught me that while I still love the art of photography more than ever, my desire to write about it isn’t as great as I had hoped.

Now, on to the pictures. I recently took a trip to Europe spending about a week in Austria, a few days in Prague, and then ended up hiking around the Swiss Alps for a few days. This was quite the trip, and as you can imagine I have a ton of pictures to share. Normally when I go on a trip I’d just post the dozen or so images on my photoblog, but considering I have over 100 I needed to find a more efficient way to get these out for everyone that wants to see them.

All of these were shot on my Leica M6, the vast majority with my Zeiss 35mm f/2 Biogon, and a handful with my Leica 90mm f/4 Elmar C. I brought 3 different kinds of film on the trip with me, Kodak Ektar 100, Kodak Portra 400VC and Ilford HP5+. I’ll take you through my trip in chronological order as best I can remember, so without further ado here are some shots taken at the JFK and Zurich airports at the very start of my vacation. These were shot on HP5+ at ISO 400.

I always shoot the first frame on a roll as a ‘throw away’ shot, just in case I haven’t wound it far enough to get past the burn, but I rather liked this shot for some reason.

I always love the unique lighting and symmetry that you can only find in airports.

This guy was in the midst of keeling over, presumably due to a heart attack.

I had to wait a good 5 minutes for this shot. Of course there are dozens of people checking their flight info every second, except when I have my camera out.

This particular baggage claim area seemed to be closed down. It was completely empty, so it looked a bit strange all lit up.

At this point I had arrived in Zurich, Switzerland, and had boarded a train to the city. Zurich airport is a good distance outside of the city itself, so the train station in the airport has trains departing roughly every 15 minutes that take you there. The Zurich train station is one of the largest stations I have been to so far, and while perhaps not the prettiest, it’s certainly one of the cleanest and most efficient.

Every platform had a nice Swiss clock every hundred feet or so, and the trains were never so much as a second late.

I was sort of in a rush to catch my next train, but since one of my main reasons for travel is photography I can always rationalize making time for some pictures.

It was about 8 or 9 in the morning at this point, so I headed out to my first destination, Innsbruck, Austria. I had seen some pretty cool pictures of this place online, it’s essentially an extremely picturesque Austrian city in a valley sandwiched between two mountain ranges. Apparently it’s a pretty popular ski resort town in the winter, and after spending some time there it’s easy to see why.

After seeing these train/trolleys all throughout my stay in Austria I had grown accustomed to them, but this was my first time seeing one.  It was like a cross between a bus, subway and trolley, and it drove on tracks on the street.

One thing I can tell you about Austrians, is they like their bicycles. Every city I went to was full of cyclists.

I noticed after a while that there was a route that most of the cyclists seemed to be following on this particular stretch of road, so I was able to stand here and wait for one of them to come along and whiz right by me.

The next day turned out to be beautiful, so I decided to shoot a roll of Portra.

The architecture in a lot of these newer Austrian cities was fascinating. For the most part, they all have distinct ‘old towns’ and ‘new towns’, each with their respectively awesome architectures.

Again, with the bikes.

This is the picturesque city center in the Old Town of Innsbruck. Seeing pictures taken of this view was one of the main reasons why I decided to visit this beautiful town, and I can assure you it was even more impressive in person.

Next I had entertained the idea of stopping by Salzburg, but I decided to head straight out to Vienna, thinking I’d check it out on my way back if I had time. I have to say, Vienna was one of the nicest, cleanest, friendliest cities I have ever been to. If I was ever going to move to Europe, Vienna is where I’d want to live.

I call this one “The Getaway”.

Vienna had one of the most convenient and accessible public transit systems I had ever seen. Everywhere you look there were buses, subways, trams and trains, taking you any and everywhere you’d want to go.

While wandering around the streets I had come upon the waterfront, where I found a bustling curbside market.

These little newsstands were everywhere, they reminded me of something you’d see back in New York or Philadelphia.

But perhaps even more prevalent were these fast food stands, offering kebabs, brats, fries and pizza for a few Euro each.

This is the Austrian Parliament building on the Ringstraße.

It is yet another example of the incredible architecture in Vienna, which is extremely varied in style ranging from Gothic to Baroque, Roman, Greek and modern.

Speaking of architecture, I happened upon this strange building called the Hundertwasserhaus.

What trip to Vienna would be complete without a visit to the famous Vienna Opera House? During the months of July and August the Opera takes a break from performances and offers group tours, so I took this opportunity to check out this amazing venue.

Definitely be sure to check out the full-res version of this panoramic view of the performance hall by clicking on the image.

I really lucked out with the timing on this trip, as I arrived right in the middle of the annual outdoor Vienna Film Festival. The night I went they were playing independent animated movies on a gigantic 5+ story tall projector screen, with a food court set up with a full selection of world cuisine. At first I of course had a beer and bratwurst, and by this point I was really starting to become enamored with the locally brewed Ottakringer beer.

By nightfall this place was absolutely packed with movie-goers, but for now this man seemed to be enjoying the peace and quiet.

The festival had gone on all day, then they started playing the movies when the sun went down. Unfortunately it was a bit too dark for pictures.

St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna was an incredible sight to behold. It’s not every day you see something like this, but I’ll let the pictures do the talking here.

As amazing as the exterior of this Cathedral was, it’s the interior that really caught most of my attention.

Only having a 35mm lens with me, I had to take a couple pictures and stitch them together to get this ultra-wide viewpoint of the interior. This and the next 3 images are downsized, so if you click on them it’ll open a larger image in your browser.

Be sure to check out the full-size version of this one.

There were so many intricate details everywhere I looked, it’s hard to believe this entire structure, from the tallest spire to the smallest sculpture was handmade hundreds of years before there was even electricity.

While we’re on the subject of incredible Gothic cathedrals, there is another, slightly smaller cathedral I found in Vienna known as the Votive Church. This one however was built in 1879 and is classified as Neo-Gothic, although it could be argued that it’s nearly as impressive than the much more famous St. Stephen’s Cathedral above.

Unfortunately they were renovating most of the exterior, so this overexposed shot of the rear of the church is all you’re going to get out of me. If you want to see some better pictures of the front, check out this Google Image Search.

After spending a few days in Vienna, I decided to head up to Prague. I was really excited to check out this fabled city, so I ticked off a day on my Rail Pass and started making my way to the Wien Meidling train station.

Along the way I checked out the Belvedere Palace, which while beautiful, was a little smaller than I had anticipated.

The Wien Meidling train station was one of the smaller stations in Vienna, but the only one with train to Prague (despite what the ÖBB website says).

(Click on the image for the high-res version)

The first thing I had noticed while traveling through the Czech Republic was that everything looked abandoned and bombed-out. I’m a little too young to remember the cold war, but somehow this country reminded me of what I imagine it must have felt like. Communism ended here in November of 1989, but much of the country still has a very distinct ‘communist feel’ to it, if such a thing exists. Nevertheless, it was a very unique place, like nothing I had ever seen before.

My first impression of Prague was one of amazement, particularly at the train station. Praha Hlvani was one of the coolest stations I have been in.

I had to wait a bit for everyone to clear out to get this shot, but I think it was worth it. At this point in my trip I had done enough waiting around in train stations and whatnot to have picked up a pack of cigarettes to help pass the time. Now don’t get the wrong idea, I don’t smoke, but everyone else in Europe does. I was here to immerse myself into different cultures, so ‘when in Rome’, right?

Check out the larger version of this pano by clicking on it.

As I left the train station, I started to get an idea of what this city was like. Cobblestone streets, Gothic spires and wrought-iron lanterns really set the mood. My first order of business was to just get lost in the twisting alleyways of the Old Town and Jewish Quarter, which was an experience in itself.

I didn’t get too many pictures at this point, due to the sheer number of tourists in this beautiful city. I had never seen anything like it. The entire Old Town district was absolutely packed with people. After a while I happened upon a cheap room, so I dropped my bag off and went out for dinner. The meal I ended up having was one of the most memorable things I have ever eaten. It was an entire pig’s knee on a mini spit, with a myriad of sides, garnishes and sauces. I washed this down with a Pilsner Urquell and then a Becherovka and tonic for a truly Czech experience.

That night I went out for a little stroll, but decided to head to bed early so I could get up before all the other tourists to see if I could get the city to myself for some pictures. This proved to be pretty successful, although for some reason I wasn’t feeling that inspired. I had hyped up Prague to be this amazing city in my mind, and with all the crowds, tourists and a few run-ins with some less-than-courteous locals I had a somewhat sour taste in my mouth. Nevertheless I tried to capture the wonderful atmosphere of the city at dawn while it was completely empty. Empty, of course, except for a couple skeevy prostitutes and some funny drunk kids from Belgium I met that were trying to catch Pigeons.

Seeing the Charles Bridge completely empty was almost surreal, compared to the day before when I could barely make it across due to all the tourists.

One thing I noticed that the Europeans do very differently than Americans, is they will not cross the road unless there is a walk signal on the lights. I presume this is due to European traffic laws being much different than ours, namely the fact that over there, cars have the right of way, not pedestrians.

Apparently this pigeon had the same idea as me, trying to beat the crowds.

Now I’ve never been much of a morning person, so sunrises are few and far between for me. Not to mention they’re much more likely to be seen at the end of a long night as opposed to the beginning of a new day. Being able to capture pictures like this certainly is some pretty good motivation though. Normally I’d try to catch the sunset, but sunsets in Prague are completely different due to the aforementioned tourist infestation.

I heard a story regarding the man who designed this astronomical clock while I was over in Prague. Apparently the officials who contracted him to build it ripped out his eyes after he was done, so he would be unable to build a duplicate in other cities. The man, obviously depressed at not only being permanently blinded, but also due to the fact that he can no longer practice his craft, threw himself into the inner-workings of the clock rendering it useless. If true, this is a pretty amazing story.

After Prague I decided to head back to Austria, to a city called Linz which was situated perfectly to give me relatively quick access to the cities of Melk and Hallstatt. I only spent about 12 hours in Linz, but from what I saw it looked like a very nice city. In 2009 Linz was voted as the Cultural Capital of all of Europe, so apparently it is. When I make it back to Austria someday I’m definitely going to stop by and really check this place out.

These kids were just sitting on the steps with a pile of empty pint-sized bottles in front of them. Keep in mind it was roughly 10 AM at this point.

At the top of the steps was this really cool modern sculpture. I had entertained the idea of sliding down it, but figured there was a pretty good chance I would have regretted that decision pretty fast.

At this point I hopped on the train to Melk for a day trip to see the world-renowned Melk Abbey. It’s basically a gigantic monastery that sits perched atop a hill, overshadowing a town not much bigger than the Abbey itself. First I’ll give you a virtual tour of the exterior of the Abbey, then I’ll take you inside where you really get an idea of how amazing this place really is.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get an aerial view of this gigantic structure to give you an idea of how big it really is, but a bit of Googling should take care of that. Inside this architectural masterpiece were some of the most beautiful, ornate rooms I have ever seen. From the entrance I walked down this long hallway called “The Emperor’s Gallery”.

This hallway led to the Marble Hall. There wasn’t much in the Marble Hall, but it was quite remarkable regardless.

Next up was the reason why I was here, the library. This is listed as one of the top 10 libraries in the entire world, and it’s not hard to see why.

Everything about this library was incredible. The attention to detail was crazy, everything seemed to be covered in gold, and I can only imagine how old and rare all these books are.

I almost didn’t want to leave the library, thinking that it was essentially the reason why I was even here in the first place. Boy was I in for a surprise.

I descended the spiral staircase not knowing what I would find at the bottom..

Somehow, the Melk Abbey was able to outdo itself once again with the most amazing church I have ever seen.

Once again, the attention to detail was simply astonishing.

After touring the Monastary there was a garden off to the side which I decided to check out.

It was the perfect place to relax and enjoy this warm, beautiful day.

After strolling around the gardens for a while for a while I decided to head back into town. The town of Melk itself was a rather small town, and despite the obvious draw of the Abbey, remained relatively free of tourists. This was certainly welcome after my time in Prague, so I spent some time walking around photographing this quaint little stop on my tour through Austria.

The town has a small, lively center full of cafés and stores, and has many bike and walking paths along the Danube River, where it’s situated.

Even though the town had an old, authentic feel to it, just like the rest of Austria there was an eclectic mix of new, modern architecture thrown in.

After Melk I had decided to make my way down to Hallstatt. The Hallstatt train station is actually located on the other side of the lake from the town itself, so upon arrival you have to take a ferry to complete your journey. Unfortunately, the ferry stops running around 7 or so, which meant I wasn’t going to make it that night. I had planned on arriving in nearby Obertraun, spending the night, and then taking a bus or ferry there in the morning.

Well, I arrived in Obertraun just after sunset, and was in the process of finding accommodations when I noticed a sign saying Hallstatt was a mere 5 kilometers away. I had just spent the last 4 or 5 hours on a train, so was eager to stretch my legs and go for a nice, scenic walk along the lake. Unfortunately it was a bit overcast and the sun had already set, so I just left my camera in my bag and soaked in the scenery while making the hour-long trek into town.

Once I got there I spent the next 2 hours trying to find a room. All the hotels were booked so I grabbed a bed at the local hostel for a mere 14 Euros. I then went into town for some dinner and a few drinks, and ended up chatting with a few of the locals at the brat stand. The next morning the weather was absolutely perfect so I got up early, loaded my camera with some Ektar and hit the town.

This is probably the ‘obligatory’ Hallstatt picture, the one found on all the postcards and pamphlets, so I of course had to take one myself.

Navigating through this picturesque hillside town involved going up and down lots and lots of stairs, but afforded me the opportunity to capture some nice aerial shots of the town and surrounding lake and mountains.

The early morning light filtering through the mountains was certainly a beautiful sight.

I normally save my ‘street’ style photography for city shooting, but I couldn’t help myself here.

I had assumed real estate in this town was rather pricey, but seeing this shiny new Ferrari parked in one of the driveways gave me a little bit of perspective.

After shooting that roll of Ektar, I loaded up some high speed black and white to take in the bone house, but I had to wait around for about a half an hour till it opened, so I shot some of it around town in the meantime.

By this time the bone house had finally opened for the day.

Hundreds of years ago the residents of the town of Hallstatt had thought up a way to deal with the problem of not having enough space for a large cemetery. After they had been buried for 10 or 20 years, they would exhume the bodies, clean and bleach the skull and bones, and then decorate them and place them in the bone house. They haven’t placed any new bones in there in roughly 50 years, so nowadays it’s more of a tourist attraction than anything.

Each person’s name was written on his forehead, it was sort of creepy to be honest.

At this point I was deciding whether or not I should spend the day in Hallstatt or start heading out to Switzerland, which is where I would be finishing off my trip. To get to where I was staying in Switzerland from Hallstatt was going to take quite some time, so I had planned on just getting as close as I could that day, getting a room for the night where ever I wound up, and then completing the journey the next morning.

I figured if I left around noon I could make it as far as Bern in Switzerland, and then just take the short train ride and gondola up to Gimmelwald when I woke up, so that was my decision.

Caught this nice couple just checking out the scenery on the boat ride out to Obertraun as I was leaving Hallstatt.

This pano is downsized, be sure to check out the larger version by clicking on it.

Now, unfortunately due to a series of train delays and a quick stopover for a meal, I ended up not getting as far as I would have liked. At around 11 PM I made it out to Bregenz in Austria, which is right on the border with Switzerland, but unfortunately there was a festival in town that day so all the hotel rooms were booked. I took the last train of the night headed to a town called Feldkirch in hopes of finding a room there. For some reason the train stopped halfway through its route however, leaving me in a tiny little residential town called Götzis.

With not a hotel in sight and a torrential downpour / thuderstorm outside I had begun mentally preparing myself for an inevitably miserable night’s sleep at the train station. By some stroke of luck however, there was one last unscheduled train that had decided to stop at the station roughly 45 minutes later. I didn’t know where that train was going, nor did I care. Anywhere would be better than where I was. It turns out the train was going to Feldkirch, so I ended up getting a room in an extremely seedy hotel there, all the while wondering if I would have been better off sleeping on a bench back at the station. Everything turned out just fine though, and the next morning I made it to Switzerland in one piece.

When I arrived in Switzerland it was cloudy and overcast. I had a few shots of Portra left in my camera from Hallstatt, so I finished that off and then tossed my red filter on and started shooting some HP5.

There were these little sheds scattered all around the mountainside, with streams and waterfalls every couple hundred meters.

The town I was staying in is called Gimmelwald, which is roughly 4500 feet above sea level. This meant I was way above most of the clouds.

They had these tripod-like contraptions set up along certain stretches of the mountainside, which were used to prevent avalanches.

This was the trail that led from Gimmelwald to Mürren, which I walked each day to go to the grocery store for food and supplies. Although I went on plenty of hikes during my stay in the Alps that spanned much greater elevations, this hike was particularly bad because it was just one steady incline the entire way. A lot of the bigger hikes would go up and down, and would level off at some points so you had a chance to catch your breath and recuperate. There was a gondola that went between the towns but cost 4 Euro each way, so I probably saved about $40 by walking.

At this point I decided to head back to the Hostel and have a few drinks with some of the other travelers I had met earlier in the day. When I woke up the next day it was overcast again, but the next few days were supposed to be beautiful so most of it was spent indoors planning out the hikes I was going to be going on (and of course drinking some more).

I headed out of the Mountain Hostel where I was staying at around 6 in the morning, and made my way down through the Lauterbrunnen Valley up to Wengen, where I would eventually find my way up to Männlichen. Männlichen was a mountain that sits right in between the two valleys in the region, which are both in the shadows of three gigantic Alps, the Eiger, Mönch and the Jungfrau. The view from atop this mountain was incredible to say the least.

From there I started the hike down to Kleine Scheidegg, which was just one breathtaking view after another.

There were also a bunch of gigantic cows just grazing all over the mountain.

This is a shot of the other valley, the Grindelwald Valley. I never ended up making it down there, which I would have liked given some better weather, but there’s always next time.

There were a few houses dotting the landscape, I can’t imagine what it would be like living in one of them.

There were some huge clouds rolling into the Grindelwald Valley, which made for some pretty intense scenery.

But the weather changes so fast, as soon as they had arrived they were gone. This is a great shot of the Eiger too, can you imagine people climb that steep, almost vertical north face?

At this point I had made it down to Kleine Scheidegg, which sits at the base of the Eiger, Mönch and the Jungfrau. This ‘town’ basically just consists of a hotel, restaurant and a train station. Apparently it’s a popular jumping-off point for a lot of serious mountain climbers.

I decided to hike from here down to Wengen. There were a number of trails, some more scenic than others, so I chose the trail that straddles the base of the 3 mountains.

This turned out to be a great idea, as it presented me with the greatest view of the mountains yet.

This is another one of those downsized panos, you don’t wanna miss the high-res version of this one.

This trail involved a bit of wilderness as well.

The weather on the Lauterbrunnen side of the mountains started off beautiful, perfect for some landscape photography of the mountains. Check out the full-res version of this and the next pic too.

Some clouds started to roll in as my hike went on, but I have to admit, they were looking pretty cool.

After a few more pics I decided to take the train back from the Wengenalp station back to Wengen. The rest of the hike was basically through a forest, and didn’t offer much in the way of scenery.

When I got back to the Hostel I planned on just taking my boots off, having some drinks and lying down for a bit, due to the exhausting nature of all the hiking I had spent my day doing. After about 15 minutes of relaxation, I realized that I was in the Swiss Alps, and every second spent sitting on my ass doing nothing would be regretted, so I was back out the door on another, slightly lower-key hike.

It was getting late by this point, so I didn’t venture too far from where I was staying. Luckily there are tons of hiking trails that start right outside my hostel’s doorstep, one of the main reasons I decided to set up camp in the small town of Gimmelwald. I ended up hiking through Mürren and made my way up to Allmendhubel. I attempted to take the funicular back down, but ended up getting slightly lost due to not bringing a map of all the different hiking trails.

I did end up finding the funicular, but I was already most of the way back down the mountain.

At this point my trip was about done, I had one day left but had to be on my plane home by 3:30 pm, so there wasn’t much time for anything besides getting to the airport which was a good 4 hours away. I was definitely sad to have to go so soon, this vacation was way too short, but I was also excited to get home and go through all my pictures. At the time I’m writing this I have been home for 3 weeks now and am just about to finish up developing and scanning my last 2 rolls of film. Then of course I will have to start developing and scanning the 6 rolls of HP5 I shot in New York City the other day, which will hopefully be another blog post for another day.