A public event lasts a few hours; its pictures have to work far longer, in tomorrow’s paper, in a magazine months later, in the campaign for next year’s edition. I photograph events, traditions and places as stories: the wide view that sets the scene, the moments and faces that carry it, the details that tell you where you are, from the street and from the air. Assignments take me across northwestern Switzerland and further when the subject calls for it.
A news desk needs the picture while the event is still news; a magazine can wait for the right light and the right season. I work to both clocks: an edited selection with captions on the evening itself, or a feature planned with the editor over several visits.
Pictured: Morgestraich, Basler Fasnacht 2026
An organiser needs more than the highlight: the rehearsal, the crowd, the people behind the scenes, the sponsor’s banner in the frame. I cover the whole event, so the press office, your partners and your social channels each find their pictures in the same set.
Pictured: Royal Victoria Regiment, Basel Tattoo 2026
From a national campaign to a single municipality’s website: I photograph places in the season that sells them, from the road and from the drone. The view visitors already know, and the one they have never had, with people in the frame when the story needs them.
Pictured: Île d’Ogoz, Lac de la Gruyère
Monday afternoon: the Cortège crosses the Rhine, seen from a drone above the river.
I followed the Fasnacht across its three days. At four on Monday morning, the city switches off its lights, and the Morgestraich begins under the head lanterns. In the afternoon, the Cortège fills the streets and crosses the Rhine, and I followed it from the air as well. After dark, the cliques wander through the old town’s alleys.
Open any image to see all 18.
Half portraits planned in camera, ready for a poster: Band of the Irish Guards, Royal Victoria Regiment, Swiss Armed Forces Conscript Band.
During the 2026 Basel Tattoo, the event’s 20th anniversary, we set up a pop-up studio in a side street. On the first evening, we offered portraits to one band; word spread, and for four evenings, musicians came by in full uniform before going on stage. I planned the close-ups in camera: half a face, a cap badge, a chin chain, graphic enough to carry a poster or a cover.
One of the many cannon shots as the raft drifts down the Rhine and prepares to dock at the Kleinbasel shore.
The big day in Kleinbasel begins on the water. The “Wild Maa” floats down the Rhine on a raft while shots are fired from aboard; upon landing on the riverbank between the Mittlere Brücke and the Kaserne, he is greeted by the “Vogel Gryff” and the “Leu.”
Basel Münster above the Rhine.
Most of these were made with the drone. In Basel: the Münster seen straight down onto its tiled roof, the Mittlere Brücke, the Roche towers at sunset. Beyond the city: the castle of Burg im Leimental on its rock, the covered bridge at Stein, the monastery of Rheinau on the Rhine, and Île d’Ogoz on the Lac de la Gruyère, which becomes a peninsula when the water is low.
Open any image to see all 9.
The white spiral staircase unfolds around a compact circular void at the new Biozentrum in Basel.
For one weekend in May, buildings in and around Basel that are normally closed open their doors. I used it to photograph the folded concrete of the Maurerhalle, the spiral stair of the Biozentrum, the open-plan floors of SRF, and the 1925 housing cooperative in Vogelsang: material for an architecture magazine as much as for a city guide.
Short notice? Call +41 79 503 88 83 or write to alan.muller@alanphilipmuller.com.
