Who doesn’t enjoy a romantic gondola ride? Probably no one, right. We always work in a gondola ride whilst we are in Venice, and you can read more about these adventures in the previous article titled appropriately, Your Romantic Gondola Ride.
But today is not about riding in a gondola, but a gondola-ride-captured snapshot and its transform it into a more fine-art photo. The transformed photo was published in the 2014 Black & White Magazine as an award winner. Here’s how I did it…and it will be short and sweet.
Click on an image to see it full-screen
First Sighting
We had just turned a bend in the Rio di San Moise canal when something up ahead caught my eye, that being the small calle up ahead that terminated right into our canal. You see it there on the left.
The Snapshot
As we approached the right turn of our route, I took this photo. I had a vision.
Funny thing about this photo. Do you see it? The blue and white sign says ‘Senso Unico’, or one-way street (or canal in this case). But we are turning right, against the sign. We’ve turned right every time we’ve taken a gondola ride. Go figure.
The Crop
Here I’ve cropped the photo to a 1:1, or square, format.
Black & White Conversion
As I was submitting this photo to a magazine that publishes in black and white, I converted the image to…you guessed…black and white.
Let There Be Dark!
I don’t want it to be day time. I want night time. So, I made it darker. I think it’s much more moody this way.
The Final Image
I like the night-time look, but let’s give it just a bit more drama by making it not just night, but a night with a bit of fog. That’s what I did to get this final photo.
As promised, short and sweet.
A Dangerous Calle
I’ve mentioned acqua alta (high water) in the past. This is an occurrence primarily in the late fall when tides and winds push up water from the Adriatic Sea and Venetians get their feet wet as they go about their day…and their calves, and sometimes their knees and thighs.
There are several places in the labyrinth of Venice where a calle will suddenly stop at a canal, like this one. If one were to be trudging through water and turn to this short calle, and if one were not familiar with this particular situation, a swim might be in one’s future, as you would not realize that the water in front of you is a canal, rather than another flooded calle.
I see the stone post in the photo. I’m guessing that this is a clue as to the fate of this calle, though I don’t remember seeing them at other dead-end calle. At any rate, if caught in the acqua alta situation, be mindful of your route.
I hope you enjoyed today’s transformation from blah, to ahh. Until next time, I say…
Ciao or now,
Steve
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