“Yea the lines hast thou laid unto me
in pleasant places,
And the beauty of this thy Venice
hast thou shown unto me..”
From “Night Litany” by Ezra Pound
Truman Capote famously quipped that Venice
is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs in one go. Certainly the visual richness, the romance and the history of the place can be a bit overwhelming but for those with the constitution to cope with the heady mixture it is a remarkably rewarding experience.
I made my second visit there last week - a solo photographic trip – from Tuesday to Saturday. Autumn is a good time to visit the city as the weather can be very pleasant - as it proved to be – and there are fewer tourists than in high summer.
I was determined to eschew the clichéd shots that everyone is familiar with - the gondoliers, the Rialto Bridge, St Marks Square etc - but I too was caught up in the whole tourist thing and I found myself clicking away with all the other visitors at the usual spots. So much for my high mindedness. Still, I think I also succeeded in capturing some images that were more than the usual holiday snaps variety and some are displayed below. Others can be found at:
The question a photographer planning such a trip has to answer is: what gear to bring? I opted for the Canon 5D Mark 11, the Canon 15mm, the Canon 17-40L and the Canon 24-105L. In addition, I took a Lee 0.9 ND Soft Grad + holder and a lightweight tripod (which fitted nicely in my checked-in bag without breaching Ryanair’s weight restriction). All in all, it proved to be a good compromise between weight and versatility. I carried it all around the city in my backpack for several hours each day without any discomfort.
A larger tripod would have been nice – fully extended, the one I had reached 4 feet and this proved inconvenient on a few occasions. However, I know that lugging around my big Manfrotto would have been exhausting. Big or small, heavy or light, a tripod or camera support of some sort is an essential piece of kit for those low light shots.
And don’t forget good walking shoes! You will do a lot (and I mean A LOT) of walking each day
Another advantage of an Autumn/Winter trip is cheaper hotel prices. I stayed at a hotel on the Campo Santa Maria Formosa, a few minutes from St Marks Square. You could get cheaper prices in Mestre (on the mainland) but you’d have the inconvenience of making your way in and out of the city every day. Not worth it, in my view. You realIy have to stay in the city to savour the Venice experience and be in a position to get those early morning and late night shots.
Other than that, my advice is just to follow your nose and keep your eyes open for the interesting image opportunities with which the city abounds.
