Where the Trip Began

Every river cruise has a first morning. Ours began in Basel, Switzerland — boarding town, embarkation port, the place where a boat full of strangers becomes, over a week, something like a small traveling village. And on the very first day, the mountains showed up.

The planning

This was the day I had been waiting for. On a previous trip to Sofia, Bulgaria, I had flown over the Alps. The rugged peaks and steep valleys were laid out below the airplane as we flew from Munich to Sofia. When we decided to go on the cruise and I saw an excursion into the Alps, I was very excited. I’ve shot images on top and below other mountain ranges: the Appalachian mountains at Seneca Rocks, West Virginia; Vitosha mountain near Sofia, Bulgaria; the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee; and the Sandia Mountains in Albuquerque, New Mexico. But the Alps were the real prize.

The gear

Nikon Z6 with the 28-70 f/2.8 Z-mount zoom — the trip’s rule was Z6 for big subjects, X100T for walking the small towns. The mountains qualified as big.

What went wrong

It was a long day (almost 9 hours out and back), but beyond that, nothing went wrong.

The shot that came out

And the mountains themselves. This black-and-white of the snow peak is one of my two favorite images of the entire trip — the other being the sunrise frames on the Main. My eye caught the cloud above the peak, almost like smoke rising from the mountain. The analysis called the tonality right: deep blacks, blown whites, the peak carved out against the dark sky. Sometimes the mountain just hands you the photograph.

What I learned

1. The picture lives inside one second. Watch where the subject is going, not where it is, and be ready before it gets there.
2. High contrast does the editing for you. A dark sky and snow that renders white — the photograph organizes itself around that split.

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Coming next: Freiburg

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Camera: Nikon Z6
Lens: 28-70 f/2.8 (Z-mount)
Exposure:
Tracker:
Location: Basel, Switzerland
Captured: April 2, 2026