The story I would like to write today starts on the 11th of September. It is a simple coincidence that this date has political significance, for my story is not about politics. On the 11th of September, I noticed that my free Flickr account is full. That is, I have uploaded 200 pictures over the course of the last years, so whenever I add a new one, the older photo vanishes. Flickr promises not to delete anything, and indeed I can use any vanished photo within my blog; however, they cannot be found on my Flickr page.
So what should I do? I could just live with it, but I have got very used to being in a photo community. I could spend a few Euros and upgrade to a Pro account. However, I did look for alternative sites and -- after some hesitation -- settled for Smugmug. Smugmug is a bit more expensive than Flickr, and they do not offer a free account. On the other hand, there a quite a few positive remarks to be found on the web; besides, I like their site.
So there it is: my new photo page. I have already added a few pictures from my Hartz hiking tours, but the page is still a bit empty compared to my old page on Flickr. So I look into my local photo album, and after a while I find what I need.
The story I would like to tell start on the 9th of August, 2003. Together with two friends, I am sitting on a camping ground in the Canton of Berne, checking the equipment for the last time. My pack also contains my trusted Rollei, and almost a dozen rolls of film. If everything goes according to plan, we will board a train in Italy in two and a half weeks, and look back on a long hike over the mountains.
The story I would like to tell really starts in 2002. A colleague, and a good friend -- we shall call him Martin -- has just finished his degree. As a reward, his colleagues present him with a hat made out of cardboard, whereas his family has some more useful presents. One of these is a GPS receiver. A few day later, we have already fixed the location of several points on Campus. However, Martin is of the opinion his new gadget needs a real test -- one that has to be done in the Alps.
I do not say anything. It is only during the weekend that I understand I will have to say something; otherwise, nothing will come of this remark.
The next weeks and months see us compiling a schedule. We will be three (Martin, his sister, and me) to cross the Alps. A classic route would be Munich--Venice, but that is quite a distance, and we have neither much time nor a lot of money. We decide to do a less ambitious hike from Interlaken to Milan. In contrast to his sister, Martin has never been on a 4000-meter mountain (and neither have I, of course), so we will visit Mt Bishorn, it being more or less en route.
All of this is now more than five years into the past; memories of the exhaustion has faded, but the beautiful moments are still quite vivid; and I still have a yearning for mountains -- real mountains -- which is stoked rather than quenched by the Harz.
During these years, the Internet has changed quite a bit. Back then, I published my pictures on a static HTML page as a gallery; nowadays, services like Flickr or Smugmug are available, and there is my favourite technique of geotagging. I have already uploaded a few photographs, and I would especially like to recommend the timeline link on the map.
As usual in the context of holiday pictures, there are a few more than the guests did look forward to; I will upload these during the next weeks. And if you look closely at the points on the map, you might notice that these do not quite fit on a line from Interlaken to Milan. But then again, I shall need some future text to go with my future pictures.
6 Kommentare • deutsch
