I didn't get to spend a lot of time with my grandfather; he passed when I was three, but I feel like we would have been kindred spirits. He grew up in Switzerland, working in (and eventually taking over) his father's watch business (I know, I know, what a cliche). He sailed, he liked to travel, and he had a little moped he fixed up and would take tours with. He met my grandma on one of those tours. After they were married, they bought an outlying barnhouse by a farmstead near Riggisberg, and renovated the hayloft to extend the house and make it habitable. At the time, my mother and my aunt were already born.

My grandfather was a great photographer, and I think his favorite subjects were his family. Going through very old photo albums, there are so many pictures of my mom and her sister as kids, and of my grandmother with them. They're beautiful pictures; he had a great eye for composition and light. I'd like to think it runs in the family...