Venice

Nine Days in Italia – Parte Tre: Palazzo Ducale & The Quest For Murano Glass

Day three of the Italia trip had a few major milestones, firstly the mosquitoes finally struck, my God the itchiness, and secondly we found a place that made a damn good sandwich. OK really what happened was we visited the Palazzo Ducale, or Doge’s Palace, a spectacular building both inside and out. Which you sort of would expect with it being the seat of government for a republic that lasted for over a thousand years, I mean that’s a long time to cover things in gold and carve out of marble. Also on this day Jo decided to desperately search for some Murano Glass to buy, the glass that she could’ve bought yesterday in a workshop where they make it, and by desperately search I mean go into every store and look at the same glass that was for sale in every single one. Perhaps it was my punishment for spending half the day looking at paintings the size of ballrooms.

Again all taken on my Olympus OM-1 with either 50mm F.Zuiko or 28mm Vivitar lenses, this time the film used is Agfa Vista 200.

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Nine Days in Italia – Parte Due: Unexpected Breakfast And Unexpected St Marks’

The second day of our trip to Italia and our first full day in Venezia, as before all images are taken on my Olympus OM-1 with either 50mm F.Zuiko or 28mm Vivitar lenses this day the film used was FujiColor C200.

This was our first full day in Venezia, not that we hadn’t spent a good few hours there the day before but this time we had the whole day and could make actual plans of what we wanted to do. This boiled down to two main things, Jo wanted to go on a boat trip to a few of the islands in the Venetian lagoon, specifically Burano since she’s been obsessed with visiting the place ever since she first saw photo’s of the multicoloured houses, and what I wanted to do which was see the Palazzo Ducale, as with every relationship the lady won so a boat trip it was. Actually that’s a little unfair as to get to where the boat trips were we had to go past the Palazzo Ducale anyway, not that we realised that as we sort of just stumbled our way through the maze of Venetian streets blindly attempting to get to St Marks’ Square where we knew you could get a boat.

Helpfully very few of the images here are actually of the boat trip itself as luck would have it I finished the roll of film at the first stop off point of Murano and a glass blowing factory. Oh well, at least Fuji captures blue’s excellently, which is good for a day of sea and cloudless sky. My God that cloudless, burning hot sky!

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Nine Days in Italia – Parte Una: Flight To The Non Existent Airport

As you may be aware from the photo’s appearing on here lately, not too long ago me and my girlfriend visited Italy. The plan was a pretty simple one, I was turning thirty years old and did not want to do that in the UK and not on a holiday and for the past year I’ve been taking evening classes in Italiano, so why not visit Italy? Jo had always wanted to visit Venezia and I’ve always wanted to visit Firenze, the two are pretty far apart (just get a map and take a look), however that wasn’t going to stop us. Through the magic of Air BnB, a huge recommendation I will give for anyone looking to travel on a budget, and the wonders of reasonably priced Tren Italia (yes that IS meant as a swipe at the awful train service and prices in the UK) we came up with an itinerary and at the end of July we set off.

I decided I was going to shoot a roll of film every single day of the trip and so over the next nine instalments I’ll be sharing the images I took and the story behind them. First up is the flight to the non existent airport, so called as when my Grandparents were talking to my Uncle about where we were flying to (Treviso as it was a cheaper flight and not too far away from Venezia), he was adamant that there is no airport in Treviso and that they must’ve misunderstood me. Not sure where he got that idea from as there most definitely is and it’s only a half hour bus ride to Venezia from there.

All images were taken on my Olympus OM-1 using either the F.Zuiko 50mm or Vivitar 28mm lenses, day one was shot on Agfa Vista 200 colour film.

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Project 52: Week 35; Landscape – Nature Up Close

Um, not sure I would describe this brief as “landscape” but that’s what the list I have for the 52 week project has it down as so there we go. This is actually a great opportunity for me to share another image I took in Italy on Il Isola di Torcello in the Venetian Lagoon, the birds seemed very unafraid of humans hence why I could get this close to them with a 50mm equivalent lens.

P1010191.jpg Olympus OM-D EM-5, Panasonic Leica Summilux 25mm, ISO 400, f2, 1/2500th sec. (more…)

Street Photography – Olympus OM-D EM-5; 52

Some of you may be aware I visited Italy a few weeks ago, I turned thirty years old and really did not want to do that in the UK so a holiday to the country whose language I’ve been learning for a while seemed a good idea. Anyway while I was there I got the chance to do a little street photography, since being a tourist people practically ignore you snapping away with your camera, this post has a few of the images I took, there’ll be a lot more to come. As usual all taken on my Olympus OM-D Em-5 and either Panasonic Leica Summilux 25mm or M.Zuiko 17mm lenses.

All eyes on her.jpg ISO 200, f4, 1/320th sec, 25mm. (more…)

Project 52: Week 32; Landscape – Colourful

Second instalment of my 52 week project this week to make up for being on holiday, although this photo is taken from that holiday. The subject being; Landscape – Colourful, perhaps this isn’t technically a landscape but it is colourful. Taken on the Island of Burano in the Venetian Lagoon.

P1010199.jpg Olympus OM-D EM-5, Panasonic Leica Summilux 25mm 1:1.4, ISO 400, f8, 1/1600th sec. (more…)