Bergbahnen (The Swiss Alps, 500 Years Later).

January 6, 2018 6:26 AM

Bergbahnen (The Swiss Alps, 500 Years Later). [via mefi projects] Photographs of the cableways and ski-lifts of Swiss ski resorts, taken on LomoChrome Purple and Turquoise specialty film. The colours call back to vintage resort posters; the grassy spring and summer landscapes look ahead to future, snowless winters. The project blog is also worth reading.
posted by daisyk (6 comments total)

Just to frighten you all more: here in Lausanne, where we can just see the start of the Alps from our studio window, it has been 50º Fahrenheit this whole week (the average high for this time of year is 39º F).
posted by Mooseli at 7:41 AM on January 6, 2018

taken on LomoChrome Purple and Turquoise specialty film

Errrm, wouldn't Lavender and Teal be more accurate (though, undeniably, less sexy)?
posted by tenderly at 5:35 PM on January 6, 2018

It's warm for us in Zürich as well. :( It snowed before Christmas and I hoped we'd get a cold winter all the way through, but since New Year it's been well into the positive (Celsius) scale every day. I read somewhere that this is related to the unusual cold snap on the US East Coast, and even saw a world map with hot and cold air patterns, but I can't find it again now.

Errrm, wouldn't Lavender and Teal be more accurate (though, undeniably, less sexy)?

From the project blog, it seems like Purplish and Grey and Mud might have been more accurate some of the time! I don't know anything about photography or lomography in particular, but I like reading accounts of specialists, in any field, trying to solve difficult problems, and that's why I enjoyed the blog, although it sounds like working with the film was deeply frustrating much of the time.
posted by daisyk at 1:55 AM on January 7, 2018

I do really like the graphical style of those posters. And the photos make me think of the smell of snow and ski socks, a semi-happy nostalgia.
posted by Zarkonnen at 2:03 AM on January 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

@daisyk - thanks for posting. It was rather frustrating working with the film, although in the end i think i managed to achieve what i was going for. I lost quite a lot of shots due to mishandling of the film by labs and/or poor quality control of the film - it took me three attempts to get this shot for example. I have a lot of this film left over so decided to give it all away to some reddit users.

It's warm here as well. I'm staring at the Dents du Midi out of my window, and i don't recall seeing it as white in the (near) 5 years i've been here. At the village altitude of 1,300m however we've had nothing but rain all week.
posted by lawrencium at 2:17 AM on January 7, 2018

lawrencium, that shot is one of my favourites, so I'm happy you persisted with it!
posted by daisyk at 3:08 AM on January 7, 2018