David Howell Travel Photography and Map Blog

There is an in-between time when it is no longer night but it is not quite daytime either. The dawn is usually a gradual linear event, progressing from dark to light, sometimes enhanced with colors.

In general I don’t photograph sunrise or sunset skies. It has been done to death, and it doesn’t interest me. Also I think taking a picture of the light source isn’t as interesting as taking a picture of what the light is shining on….

An old bank building looming over an even older city hall. Maybe a metaphor about influence, or maybe not.

The composition was not intended as a metaphor. They were just interesting buildings viewed up through a tree-covered plaza….

Sitting on your porch you can see Jungfrau.

On warm summer evenings you watch the alpenglow on the glaciers and listen to waterfalls and bird songs. Perhaps you sip tea and relax with a world class view of the Bernese Oberland….

The background image on my business card is a self-portrait in old town Bern, Switzerland. It is a vague reflection in the window of a door in an old stone building. There is a scooter and a bicycle parked in front.

When someone asks where the photo was taken, I tell them that it is Bern which is the capital of Swizerland. A frequent response is, “Isn’t Zurich the capital?”

The snow kept falling. Eventually we couldn’t see out the windows. But the massive logs still blazed in the old stone fireplace.

We didn’t need to leave so we settled in and enjoyed the rustic mountain setting.

Everything about Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood in Oregon is over-sized and handmade. It is a place filled with rough cut stone and exposed timber beams….

Yvoire, France is a beautiful medieval stone village.

It is easy to imagine the setting of village life in the mostly intact old town section. It is harder to realize the difficulties of providing food, water, and defense for this lakeside village.

Yvoire is on the south shore of Làc Leman (Lake Geneva) on a prominent point between Geneva and Évian-les-Bains….

You’ve heard of the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

But the ceiling of the St. Tugdual Cathedral, probably not. There are no Michelangelo masterpieces on the St. Tugdual ceiling. And it is in a little town along the north shore of Brittany….

Jeux et Jouets en Bois. Games and toys in wood.

We didn’t know what we would find in Rochefort-en-Terre when we left the coast. It had been overcast and drizzly so I hadn’t been able to photograph as I had planned. But the late afternoon seemed to be clearing so we decided to go for a drive to a village we had read about in the interior….

The incomparable Musée d’Orsay in Paris.

Many voyages started and ended in this former railway station on the banks of the Seine. The station was the hub for the rail system serving southwest France from 1900-1939. There were 16 underground tracks with the main station, great hall, and hotel above….

What if he hadn’t done his math homework?

What if playing a video game like Grand Theft Auto had been more important?

Ieoh Ming Pei certainly did his homework. He completed architecture degrees at MIT and Harvard. Then he designed and completed buildings around the world. Architecture is an interesting mix of art, science, and math using both sides of the brain….