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Even Venice Is Powerless Against A Smartphone
Taking meaningful photos in Venice is quite challenging because the strong déjà vu effect can blind you to the city’s beauty. I’m not talking about the myriad selfie-taking tourists who want to take home — or publish on their social media profiles — a small part of the city’s soul. They are not expected to understand even the fundamentals of photography, and they don’t actually need this knowledge to achieve their goal. I have no problem with that. People with ‘heavy calibre’, though, are a different matter. If they’re not going to walk around with massive bodies and lenses just for show, they should at least know a thing or…
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The Silent Ceremony
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Red Cross
Some photographs are taken instinctively, almost without the usual premeditation that guides my framing. This one emerged from a walk at night, when the glow of an illuminated red circle caught my eye—a signal cutting through the darkness. At its centre, a cross of tiny LEDs blinked rhythmically, part medical icon, part abstract light sculpture. Framing it was straightforward: the dark surroundings worked like a natural vignette, pushing the viewer’s gaze towards the centre. I positioned myself to keep the circle symmetrical within the frame, knowing that the composition’s strength would lie in its stark simplicity. Technically, this was a delicate balance. Shooting at night with such a bright light…
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Damned Pidgeons…
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The Aperitif
This image was taken quickly, just as I passed the window. What struck me wasn’t the act of drinking — which is unremarkable in itself — but the multiple surfaces at play. A woman in profile, lifting her glass; a man absorbed in his phone; reflections of pedestrians I didn’t see until after the shutter clicked. And then the writing — bold, cartoonish, childish even — floating across the image like subtitles with no film. I shot through the glass deliberately, without trying to erase myself or the distractions. The transparency becomes part of the narrative. The drawing on the window, playful and crude, contrasts with the subdued tones inside:…
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The Prisoner’s View from the Sospiri’s Bridge
There is a certain poignancy in photographing through a barrier. The eye is forced to acknowledge not only what is visible but also the fact that the view is restricted, filtered, mediated by an obstruction. In this case, the lattice of stone from Venice’s Ponte dei Sospiri frames the canal beyond like an unwilling picture frame — one that speaks of confinement, not choice. From this vantage point, gondolas glide lazily beneath a small bridge, their passengers unaware of the weight of history pressing against the vantage point from which we watch them. The image is built on the interplay between sharpness and softness: the stonework in the foreground is…
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Conversation
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Seats
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Natural Silohuette
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The Glassmaster
I took this photograph in a small workshop where the air was thick with heat and the faint scent of molten silica. The man at the bench was a veteran glassblower, his movements so fluid they seemed choreographed—every rotation of the blowpipe, every precise turn of the wrist, shaped the glowing mass at its tip into something delicate and exact. In composing the image, I wanted to give space to the environment. This wasn’t simply a portrait; it was a record of a craft. The cluttered benches, the brick furnace, the scattered tools—these were as much a part of the story as the craftsman himself. I framed him slightly off-centre,…
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Interpreti Veneziani – Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Live@San Vidal
I took this photograph in the interval just after the final piece had ended. The applause was still fading, and the musicians were easing out of performance mode and back into themselves. That is the moment I am often most drawn to—the release, the unguarded shift from concentration to relief or quiet joy.
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Table Dressing
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Lost
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Nice Drink
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Are you Sure?
There is a delightful dissonance at work in this photograph, taken on Venice’s docks. We expect wedding portraits to be carefully curated affairs — romantic, timeless, perhaps even a little clichéd. Yet here, the scene unfolds against a backdrop of a bright yellow, graffiti-stained container, with stacks of bottled water and the raw brick of a church wall behind it. From a compositional perspective, the frame is well balanced. The groom, positioned to the left, strides toward the bride, who stands slightly off-centre to the right. The eye is drawn naturally from him to her, and then to the small entourage of photographers and onlookers who appear more amused than…
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The Stroller
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Indifference
They might be travelling together, but their body language tells a different story. I spotted them in Venice, sitting mere inches apart, yet continents away in attitude. She looks ahead, arms crossed, eyes shaded, posture closed. He’s buried in his phone call, face half-covered, shoulders turned. The irony of their proximity to water — a place where people typically pause, connect, reflect — only heightens the emotional disconnect. Compositionally, I was drawn to the layered diagonals: the canal’s edge slicing across, the dock projecting out, the visual wall created by their backs. Their separation isn’t just emotional — it’s architectural. Framing them just off-centre, I allowed the background vaporetto and…
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The Porter
There is a peculiar rhythm to Venice in summer — a constant shuffle of feet, a hum of voices in a dozen languages, the clack and roll of suitcase wheels over stone. This image came from within that chaos, taken almost in the middle of the stream. The porter is pushing against the tide, a functional counterpoint to the leisure of the surrounding crowd. His trolley, loaded with a fortress of luggage, dominates the frame, almost spilling out toward the viewer. The sign with his name and “authorized” status lends a touch of officialdom to what is otherwise a raw, physical job. I positioned myself low and close, so the…
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The Violinist
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Aren’t Tapas Spanish?
Wandering through Venice, I came across this signboard outside a small eatery, its hand-painted letters enthusiastically proclaiming Cicchetti – Typical Venetian Food – Tapas. The first two lines make perfect sense: cicchetti are indeed a hallmark of Venetian gastronomy, those small, flavourful bites served in bàcari across the city. But then comes the curious third line: Tapas. A word so rooted in Spanish culinary identity that seeing it coupled with “typical Venetian” is enough to raise an eyebrow — and perhaps a smile. From a photographic perspective, the image is a straightforward yet effective piece of documentary work. The sign is centred and fills the frame, allowing the viewer to…
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Hi-Tech Temptation
The contrast was immediate and irresistible — two Buddhist monks, their robes a saturated blaze of orange, standing in front of a shop window brimming with the shiny clutter of modern consumerism. The scene unfolded in Venice, a city that thrives on paradoxes, and the colour clash alone could have carried the frame. But the real intrigue came from the posture of the two figures: one more open, almost leaning toward the display, the other turned slightly away, as if holding a polite distance from the pull of it all. Technically, the shot benefits from the light that bounces generously along Venetian streets. It’s a soft daylight, diffused just enough…
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Hey Mister!
Shot mid-morning in hard light, narrow Venetian alley, high pedestrian flow. The frame snapped into place by instinct—the older tourist in the foreground, the younger porter directly behind, moving toward the same vanishing point. No interaction between them, yet the composition forces a silent narrative: one leading, the other following, as if engaged in negotiation. They weren’t. Framing was tight but deliberate. I stepped back half a metre to let the porter’s hand, cart, and stance fall into line with the man’s shoulder. Their postures echo: left arm bent, forward step, gaze off-frame. Depth compresses them, flattening the spatial truth into a compositional fiction. The scene holds three depths: chalkboard…
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Different Loads
I’ve always been fascinated by how the street can arrange itself into small, unplanned narratives. Here, the frame catches two distinct burdens: a man in the foreground carrying a large, wrapped package clasped tightly in his arms, and another, further back, wheeling a suitcase with the ease of modern travel. Between them, a handful of passers-by slip through the scene, each in their own rhythm. The composition benefits from a strong foreground element — the man’s folded hands over the package create both texture and a sense of intimacy. They also form a visual block that forces the eye to travel diagonally into the depth of the frame. The background…
