Basin de San Marco | Weekly Photo #56
Before the pandemic took hold, I was starting to consider how I could diversify my own photography so it wasn’t so focused on London or urban scenes. I wanted to spend more time exploring my local area but while working in the city, I guess it was just easier to continue shooting where I spent most of my time. Fast forward a few months and things have obviously changed quite a bit. Since the lock-down started to ease in the UK, I’ve had some great fun researching and scouting locations to photograph here in the South East of England, from castles and lighthouses to ancient woodlands and rolling hills, I have certainly taken advantage of this opportunity.
I will of course share some photos of my recent outings here on my site soon enough but you can keep up with what I’m doing in real-time by following me on Facebook or Instagram and checking the stories I post while out in the field.
Fujifilm X-T10 | XF10-24mm | 17mm | 14 Seconds | f/7.1 | ISO200
This week’s photo is one taken on my first trip to Venice back in 2017. My sunrise shoot was coming to an end and this was the last shot on my list I wanted to take.
This is a frequently captured composition of the moored gondolas on the edge of the Basin de San Marco but it’s a classic for good reason. It shouts Venice and most people that visit to take photos will try to capture this scene for their own collection and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that in my book. I’d already spent a few days seeking out new, unique compositions of the city but I wasn’t going to leave without getting my own versions of the hero shots of Venice such as this or the famous view from Ponte dell'Accademia which you can see here: The Glass Canal | Weekly Photo 28.
Compositionally, it took me a few minutes to find the best spot along the water and arrange everything how I wanted. Using my wide-angle 10-24mm set to 17mm, I composed the boats so that they would be pointing up and inwards towards the centre of the frame which mirrored the triangular shape of the clouds that also appear to point to the centre of the frame and towards the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore which was basking in the warm morning light across the water.
I also liked the way the light was falling onto the wooden poles in the foreground and wanted to make a feature of these but had to stay mindful and avoid them obscuring the view of the bell tower across the water. I purposely kept the camera level to minimise any distortion and keep the wooden poles straight which avoided any significant correction and cropping while editing the image.
Lastly, I wanted to capture the movement in the boats but there was too much ambient light to do this by adjusting camera settings alone so I used a 10-stop ND filter to get the longer shutter speed of 14 seconds which was enough to capture the movement, soften the foreground a little but still allow the boats to be a feature and remain recognisable in the image.
If you want to see more of my photos from Venice, you can see them here: A Weekend in Venice
Until next time
Trevor
This post is featured in my Weekly Photo series where I post a new photo every Monday. To have this delivered directly to your inbox, you can subscribe to the mailing list here.