Calle Ghetto Vecchio, Venice, (osm)
It’s time to leave Ireland photographically for good. There are probably some more images to discover in this set, and to do a strict editing towards a selection for prints, but that will take its time, more than I have available at the moment.
But then there’s a big, still unmined set of images from Italy. In October last year, merciless project obligations made me leave home for more than a week and spend my time in meeting rooms. Much to my delight the venues were Venice and Bologna, and I succeeded to set aside some days just for walking and photographing. Now Venice is literally photographed to death, and I proved to be unable to withstand the lures of channels, gondolas and pittoresque decay, at least for the first day. To avoid the decay however is not easy, as downtown Venice *is* decay (and glittering boutiques…). Still, I’ll try to show you some not too much clichéed sides of this beautiful place, beautiful especially when one manages to step away of the herd. And bear with me if I can’t resist the temptation to smuggle one or the other photograph of a Gondola into this set.
A little bit like an angry face with an open mouth with crooked teeth.
Totally not cliché!
Mission accomplished. For now 😛
I’ll try my best, Martina! Mining a not-absolutely-fresh set of images brings revelations as well as doohs.
Definitely looking forward to see what you have lined up. And feel free to slip in the cliches, I’d be interested to see how you picture the so-called cliches.
Cedric, regarding clichés I am unfortunately as thick as the majority. When strolling through the alleys there, I literally had to take all those picturesque images first until I was ready for something less superficial.
Well, I’ve certainly enjoyed the Irish series and how you interpreted what you saw. Only been to Venice once and to be honest my lasting impression is one of dilapidation not cliche.
Colin, for me those zillions of tourists ooh’ing in front of dilapidating walls and dirty looking and smelling channels, buildings garnered with arcs etc. form a certain kind of cliché image of Venice. I try to constantly challenge my preference for old walls instead of new ones, but the mixture of Venice sometimes drifts into tragedy. Sober old walls like Romanesque churches or the remnants of abbeys in Ireland don’t seem to be covered with so much contrived sugar coating.
Regards the dilapidation: this is certainly a problem, according to Venetians connected with overly high costs of living and renovation plus a high demand for houses in the better areas/waterfront, making room for speculation.