Two photographs of bridges in Venice today. There are probably other famous bridges in Venice, but these are the two that immediately spring to mind.
The first is the Bridge of Sighs which connects the interrogation chambers in the Doge’s Palace to the New Prison. It is so named because the view of Venice from the windows of the covered bridge would be the last sight of the outside that convicts would see, and they would sigh wistfully before being taken to their cells.
If prisoners were to cross the bridge today, they would witness dozens of tourists (such as I) taking photographs of the bridge from the next one along.
The second bridge is the Rialto Bridge, a spectacular crossing across the width of the Grand Canal. The Grand Canal is spanned by just three other bridges other than this one.
The Rialto Bridge was completed in 1591, replacing an earlier wooden bridge dating to 1251 (which itself had replaced the first crossing – a floating pontoon bridge – from 1181). Similar to the wooden bridge that came before, the current stone built bridge has two rows of shops on its span.
It was difficult to find a good vantage point to capture the bridge in it’s entirety, especially with the Trip 35’s fixed focal length, but I quite like this picture with the colourful mooring poles in the foreground.
The final picture is the southerly view along the Grand Canal from atop the bridge’s arch.
Olympus Trip 35 & Kodak Gold. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
This tower is one of those that doesn’t look as big in pictures but which is huge when you get up close and personal. On my last visit to Venice I went up to the viewing balcony (without my wife, who isn’t keen on heights), but this time I just admired it from its base and the surrounding area.
I didn’t realise until recently that the tower completely collapsed in 1902 and the tower in place today was completed in 1912.
Olympus Trip 35 & Kodak Gold. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
This was one of the first photographs I took after getting of the boat to Venice. The canal is the Rio del Greci and the tower is the campanile bell tower of San Giorgio dei Greci (or Saint George of the Greeks, in English).
The foundations of the tower collapsed due to subsidence during the building phase, resulting in the leaning tower. It’s stood intact since 1592 when construction was completed, so it’s doing pretty well despite the lean.
Olympus Trip 35 & Kodak Gold. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
On the second day of out short break in Italy we decided to take a trip to Venice, about an hour’s travel by bus and ferry from Lido di Jesolo.
It was our second trip to Venice, the first being over thirty years ago on a day trip from our holiday to Rimini on the Italian Adriatic. On that day we took a full excursion, complete with following a tour guide with a bright umbrella around the sights. We visited various places, including a glass factory, and the place was lovely, but my abiding memories are of being crapped on by a pigeon the moment we stepped off the coach, and of my wife banging her head on a fire extinguisher (I think we were in a stairwell) so hard that she still has a small depression on the top of her head to this day!
On this trip we kept wary eyes out for both pigeons and fire-extinguishers.
The weather was lovely on the day and the ferry from Punta Sabbioni to Venice was busy. I was asked by a fellow passenger – he sounded like he was from one of the Scandinavian countries – if we were not concerned about missing the coronation of King Charles, but I can honestly say that I didn’t miss it at all, and much preferred the cool breeze and the scenery of the Venetian Riviera passing me by to being cooped up at home waching the coronation on TV.
The pictures below were taken on the waterfront after we disembarked from the ferry. There’s something very appealing about the colours in these photos I think. There was also a certain pleasure to be had making them with my Olympus Trip 35 – serving the purpose for which it was designed.
The majority of the photos I took on the trip to Italy were shot during the Venice trip, so more to come!
Olympus Trip 35 & Kodak Gold. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Another of the four sheets of film I shot with the Chamonix at the weekend. It’s a location that I’ve featured on the blog a number of times, and seemed a reasonable place to fire off a sheet while testing out the camera.
I’d love to get closer to the old building, but it sits in the middle of crops and the footpath just skirts the edge of the field. I could risk it, I suppose, but I’d not feel comfortable trying to explain that in any way that wouldn’t look self-serving in the event I got found out. I’m h ppy the footpath is there though.
As soon as I pulled this picture’s negative from the developing tank, I knew there was a vignette. It was pretty obvious to see. I’ve cropped in a little and also used some Lightroom wizardy (well, half-assed messing about with sliders) to remove the worst of it, but it’s still plainly apparent in the top corners of the image.
The reason for the vignette is that I used quite a lot of front rise when composing the shot to get the church framed in the centre of the image vertically. My vantage point was from the bottom of the churchyard, which is down a slope, so the front rise allowed me to prevent converging verticals.
Lenses used in 4×5 photogrphy need to have an image circle of 153mm in order to cover the whole sheet of film. As soon as you start to use camera movements, this image circle needs to be larger to accomodate them. My 135mm lens has an image circle of 206mm, which is more than sufficient to cover the film and use a range of movements, but only within certain limits. So, once I use more than around 35mm of front rise (when the front standard where the lens is mounted is raised), the edges of the image circle begin to impinge on the film, leaving an unexposed vignette.
This vignette can be seen on the ground glass, or by other methods, when composing the shot. That is, if you’re paying proper attention. Which I wasn’t.
Another lesson learnt, but the picture isn’t too badly affected, luckily.
If you’ve followed this blog during the past six months, you’ll probably know that I took my first steps into the world of large format photography this year. Just before Christmas I bought a used Chroma 4×5 camera along with a lens and a bunch of film and other accessories. While I’ve had successes with the Chroma, I’ve also had issues in the form of light leaks.
I should note that I don’t believe that this reflects on teh quality of the Chroma camera itself, not the company that produced it – the owner was very kind and helpful when I spoke with him, despite my camera being second-hand and not having been bought direct from him. Rather I think that my own camer has been damaged in some way at some point.
It’s now boxed up unitil such a time that I can try to pin down and rectify the source of the light leak. I’ve made a number of attempts to do so, but without success, and the cost of wasted film, developer, and – perhaps most importantly to me – time, has become too much for the time being.
I’ve not stopped wanting to shoot large format though, so had made enquiries to borrow a camera from someone I know. While that was taking place, I spotted a used Chamonix 045N-1 camera for sale at a specialist retailer, and was tempted. While it was more than I had been considering spending, it was a good price. Plus I should get my bonus this month. And so, worried that someone else would get the jump on me, I took the plunge and bought my second 4×5 camera.
The 045N-1 is, I believe, the entry-level 4×5 camera in Chamonix’s range. It has been superceded by the N-2 camera, but still remains very capable. It’s easy to set up, and while it lacks a couple of features that my Chroma has, it’s a much more solid camera and as a result easier to use. Some things that I found a little fiddy with the Chroma, are notably improved here – as you would expect given the higher cost. The camera feels completely solid, while there was always a bit of wiggle with my Chroma and, given how much difference a tiny amount of movement can make in terms of fine focus, this adds a great deal of confidence that what I see is what I will get when taking pictures. Inserting film holders is also much better with the Chamonix – they slide into the camera back with a buttery smoothness which, again, gives me confidence that I’m not knocking my composition out of whack.
I took the camera out for some test shots yesterday. Not too far from home as I was still slightly paranoid that the light leaks I’d had with the Chroma might not be the camera’s fault and instead produced by one of my film holders or something, so I drove out to photograph a few places I’ve visited before. The camera was pleasant to use, although I’m sure I’ll get more adept at setting it all up as I use it more – I was still a bit fingers-and-thumbs on this outing.
I developed the four sheets I took this morning and it was a great relief to see that, despite using the camera in very bright, direct sunlight, there were no signs of any light leaks when I pulled the negatives from the developing tank.
Here are a couple of the resulting images. Perhaps not prize winners, but I’m happy with them.
As a child, VW Beetles were a commonplace sight, whether parked on the street or seen driving along roads, their passage announce by distinctive air-cooled engine sound. Sometimes I would be overjoyed to see one that had been painted to look like Herbie.
But over time they faded from view and it wasn’t until the new, much worse looking (in my opinion), New Beetle arrived in the late 1990s that the cars began to be widely seen again, on British roads at least. The New Beetle lasted from 1997 to 2011, when it was replaced by the sleeker-looking Beetle A5, which itself was finally retired in 2019.
The original Beetle design is a classic and as a result there are still many being maintained, so it’s easy to find one (or several) at classic car shows, and they also turn up in customised form. There’s a customised green Beetle often to be found parked near my local fish & chip shop which I’ve thought about photographing but, apart from a digital snap I took a few years ago, I haven’t gotten around to doing so.
When I spotted this pristine Beetle in Lido di Jesolo, I just had to get a few pictures. It’s nice to see one in such pristine condition in the wild.
Olympus Trip 35 & Kodak Gold. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
A very noticeable feature of the beach at Lido di Jesolo was the sheere quantity of sunloungers and beach umbrellas. There were thousands of them, probably tens of thousands! It’s someting I’ve noticed in other Italian resorts too (in my relatively limited experience of them), but they really stood out here.
Hotels have their own section of beach with sunloungers for their guests, although I think they can be hired by non-residents too. Some of the hotels are directly adjacent to the sand, but others might be a street or two further inland.
We visited in early May, before the main Italian holiday season begins, so most of the loungers were unoccupied while we were there. I expect it is a sight to behold at the height of the season!
Olympus Trip 35 & Kodak Gold. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
This interesting building sits atop the EuroSpar supermarket in Lido di Jesolo. It was pointed out to me that it was designed by Stefano Pujatti of ELASTICOFarm. This doesn’t mean much to me being somewhat unfamiliar with the world of modern architecture, but I was happy to see more pictures of the structure and find out more about it via this link: https://www.elasticofarm.com/architecture/le-batiment-descendant-lescalier/
I had no idea that the swimming pool was there on the occasions we visited the supermarket!
Olympus Trip 35 & Kodak Gold. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Steel City Snapper photography 