VENICE NIGHT AND DAY

I took these night and day photos of the island of San Giorgio Maggiore from my hotel suite window at the Baglioni Hotel Luna in Venice, Italy. The belltower of the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore has been an iconic landmark of the Venetian lagoon and a focal point of view from the Piazetta. The first photo below was taken right before sunset while the second one was taken at night. Torn on which photo to use as my primary feature for this post, I decided to play with both by merging them together. I thought it amusing to see different times of the day on the same photo. By the way, I took these with my camera handheld so it’s just pure luck that I captured the same spot at almost the same angle. I used a Canon Rebel T6s for these photographs and the app Pixelmator to combine both photos.

GONDOLA SURPRISE

When in Venice, a gondola ride is quite inevitable…so during my trip to this floating city last October, I found myself sailing in one along this ancient city’s narrow canals. The sailing was smooth despite it being a tiny boat and was filled with pleasant surprises at every turn.  Imagine my shock when in the middle of the tour the gondola glided out into the wide Venetian lagoon. I am not scared of sailing into open waters just as long as I’m in a huge boat…but when you’re in a tiny gondola rocking in a large body of water it wasn’t difficult to start panicking. Apparently, this was part of the route and the gondolier wanted to show me the Doge’s Palace from out in the lagoon when he found out I was into photography. It was a spectacular view indeed but I couldn’t help myself from clinging on the boat for life’s mercy. Despite being partially frozen in fear, I couldn’t miss the opportunity to take a photograph so I slowly pulled out my iPhone 7 Plus and took a number of shots. I was also too chicken to move to the opposite side of the boat so I ended up capturing a portion of the gondola, which surprisingly added an interesting perspective to my photographs…This one turned out to be my best and favorite shot.

BRIDGE OF SIGHS 

I always thought it was called the Bridge of Sighs because of the emotions it brought out of the viewers outside. However, I found out during my tour of the Doge’s Palace that it was called as such due to the emotions of the convicts crossing towards their prison cells seeing freedom for the last time…thus the sigh. The bridge is a key landmark in Venice as you can tell from the large crowd gathered on the bridge. I also stood on that bridge and took a number of photos but this one I took from the opposite side turned out better. The gondolas sailing towards the Venetian lagoon added a dramatic effect to the composition without taking away the focus from the bridge above. And just like everyone else who stood before this famous bridge, I took a sigh of appreciation for its beauty despite the tragic purpose of its very existence.

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