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Trying to photograph a gondola in a meaningful way midday in Venice at the end of July is an exersize in frustration.
What I wanted was an evocative image of a single gondola making it's stately way down the middle of an otherwise deserted canal.
Ha! No chance of that, as gondolas were logjammed nose to tail in the narrow canals, battling for space much like cars on spagetti junction at rushhour.
So what to do? Unable to take a sensible photo of a whole gondola I decided to use that time honoured trick and photograph details instead. After all, gondolas are so recogniseable that even just a small part of one would immediately shout 'Venice' to anyone seeing the final image.
The important thing to consider when photographing a detail is what to place in the background, which should add some ambience to the image without being distracting.
In the end I decided to use this somewhat dilapidated wall and window, which was typical of the outside of Venician buildings (apparently they're georgeous inside), to place the prow of a passing gondola against.
This gave a nice balance between being interesting and evocative, without distracting too much from the prow of the gondola, which is the focal point of the image.
Filename - venice gondolas 02.jpg
Camera - Nikon D3100
Lens - 18-55mm zoom @55mm
Exposure - 1/400sec @ f8, ISO400
Location - Venice, Italy
This image - 800x640px JPEG
Conversion - ACR & PS-CS2
Comments - -0.7 stop exposure compensation used to preserve details on gondola prow.
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