Photographing Venice, Italy

​Venice is a city of doors, alleys, windows, bridges and more.  You can get lost within minutes, even when attempting to follow the signage.  The mostly narrow main streets are filled with throngs of people as are the mostly narrow canals, although in the canals, of course, the people are in motorboats or gondolas.  There are several hundred gondolas and the operators offer gondola rides from morning light to end of day.  The buildings are massive in some cases, mostly the churches, and very tiny in other cases, mostly the “fast food” places, pizza, gelato, coffee, etc.  Then there are the plazas, which are wide open and spacious and most offer benches to sit on.  People gather in the plazas to chat, let the dogs and kids run, and to eat gelato or have a drink, coffee, wine, or beer mostly.  The plazas always have a sit-down restaurant or two with linen covered tables and hard chairs, maybe so that you do not sit too long!    

As a photographer I was drawn to the open windows and doorways, the dark and hidden pathways, the laundry (there are no dryers, or so it seems), to shapes, to color, and to reflections.  I was also drawn to taking photographs, for the most part, without people as the primary subject, although I do have a few of those, too.  The early mornings were good for this and the light, at times, was beautiful.

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