A glorious city in the sea.
I spent a week in Venice in March. Its my favorite city to walk with or without my cameras. A poem by Samuel Rogers perfectly frames the narrative arc of the images. The series ends with a faux-Venus statue in a storefront.
Blow, blow, thou winter wind
“Ice strangles oldest city,” the St Augustine Record proclaimed twenty-three years ago on December 24, 1989. The temperatures with windchill plummeted to below zero to -20 degrees in Fahrenheit. That day bridges in the area, except the Vilano bridge, closed. There were so many accidents on the ice-covered county roads and I-95 that FHP ran out of people to handle and count them. The night shift had already been called in by 3 PM on Saturday.
The Morning of the 24th of 2022 came close. There was no ice on the roads, and all bridges remained open. Traffic did not stop. Bitter cold wind chill forced down the mercury to 13 degrees Fahrenheit. Residents covered the yard plants in varying materials to ward off the cold-induced death, turned the heat on, and stayed indoors. Tourists and residents alike deserted sites that customarily are bustling.
Empty Chairs in St Mark Square in Venice
Empty Chairs in St Mark Square: I was intrigued by vacant spaces – spaces that I certainly had not seen without hordes of people. The strongest presence in these images was what was absent from them.
TRIPTYCH and more at the Bridge of Sighs in Venice.
Bridge of Sighs in Venice evokes feelings of anguish and hopes of escape. I thought of these emotions in a tercet and communicated my interpretation via a triptych. This blog post discusses how I sketched my way to that.
St Augustine Morning
St Augustine Florida glowed in morning light. I started taking images of the Bridge of Lions before sunrise – during the blue hour – and then continued once the sun rose above the horizon.
The Rialto Bridge at Dawn.
In 1588-1591, Venetian architect Antonio da Ponte combined the form and function, the grace and dignity, with strength and permanence to rebuild the beautiful Rialto Bridge on the Grand Canal.
Layering, dimensionality, and the composition in photography.
I invite you to consider three layers when composing your photographs: foreground, middle-ground, and background. What have you decided to include and equally importantly exclude in each? The choice of lens, exposure, composition, and aspect ratio all serve that vision.
The equation for Keeper rate: Time spent at a location is directly proportional to the quality of images.
The not so secret equation for the keeper images: The keeper rate is directly proportional to the time spent at the photographic location, or with the subject.
LX Factory Lisbon, Portugal
LX Factory in Lisbon Portugal. A weaving factory was established and blossomed because of industrialization; it fell to a factory fire in 1814; rose-again but with a new “English-style” fire-proof design in 1819; fell yet again as it went out of business in 1917; and stayed abandoned and forgotten, yet it rose again like phoenix from ashes into its current incarnation: the LX Factory in 2008/2012.
Inside the Castilo de San Marcos-Part 1
