Foreground, left, a photographer in a yellow jacket, half-way kneeling, photographs a group of four persons in costume, to the right, in the background.
Colour photo on a bright sunny day, looking straight down from a high balcony into the turquoise water of a canal. A narrow pale wooden jetty emerges a short way into the frame from the bottom centre of the photo, with three mooring posts irregularly staggered along its edge. The post which is furthest into the canal is throwing a stark black shadow down the length of the jetty, and also has a seagull perched jauntily on top of it. The tail end of a gondola is making its way out of shot in the top right hand corner, but we can see two passengers sitting on a red seat just at the edge of the frame, and behind them the gondolier standing proud on the back of the boat, casting his shadow on the water parallel to the long oar which echoes the colour of the jetty. Most of the photo is water, but I like it because the unusual crop makes it feel like it doesn't have a direct subject, and while it doesn't seem particularly interesting at first glance, it gets more intriguing the more you look at it.
Black and white photo of a man crouching in the tiny space between a Juliette balcony and a tall closed window, smoking a cigar. He is in all black, and is wearing a black fedora, and holding the hand with the cigar up in front of his face so that it is obscured by a cloud of smoke. He looks marvellously bohemian. Warm light spills from the window behind him, as if there is a party in full swing, and he has chosen to step away for a moment of solitary peace and contemplation. Below the window is the top of a pale shop awning, and the wall of the building is stained textured old plaster. Despite being in Venice, the image feels very French to me, an embodiment of Left Bank intellectual hedonism and je ne sais quoi.
A photograph of a narrow back canal in Venice, Italy, with calm water running through the centre and an ornate iron bridge arching gently from one side to the other. Along the canal edges, traditional Venetian boats are tied up, sitting low in the water and resting quietly against the stone banks. Tall, closely packed buildings line both sides of the canal, painted in soft pastel colours that appear slightly faded and worn from age and exposure. Their textured facades, with shuttered windows and uneven surfaces, lean subtly toward the water, enclosing the space and giving it a sheltered, intimate feel. The scene feels still and unhurried, showing an everyday corner of Venice far removed from crowds or busy landmarks.
The light. The art. The statuary. The thousands upon thousands of mosaic tile that create intricate artwork that tells the stories in Jewish scripture, the Gospels, the epistles, and the history of Venice itself: Saint Mark's Cathedral in Venice, Italy is a spectacular monument to artisanship, creativity, and beauty.
Colour photo taken on a foggy night, looking along a narrow Venetian canal, which t-junctions into a wider canal at its end. Along the left side of the narrow canal is a high reddish brick wall, with a dark black leafy tree rising above it. On the right are tall palazzi, with a sliver of stone pavement before a wall of wooden mooring posts and parked small motorboats along the edge of the canal. There are three round streetlights along the pavement which throw cones of hazy yellow-white light down towards the canal. The water is dark grey, and still and shiny like a piece of silk. The whole is in tones of ochre and dusk, apart from two flecks of muted colour: a small rectangle of glowing pastel red from a high window in the building on the right lit from within, and a small rectangle of electric blue which shines through the dense fog from a window in the building on the other side of the wider canal in the distance. The image feels dream-like.
Black and white photo. A band of rooftops with assorted TV aerials and chimney stacks runs along the bottom of the frame. The sky above is streaked with pale grey clouds, and dense with the pen-stroke outlines of a flock of about 50 seagulls, circling in a quite scary Hitchcockian way. The picture feels quite sinister and oppressive.
Colour photo of two storeys of a peach-coloured wall, where the paint on the lower storey has mainly flaked away leaving smudgy patches of beige and rust and grey. On the lower storey from left to right: a closed faded-brown wooden door, with the backs of two air conditioners - white rectangles with a grey circle covered by a metal mesh - immediately above; and two plain rectangular windows also covered by rusty metal grilles. On the top storey, from left to right: a window with dull green wooden shutters slightly ajar; a tiny rectangular window which is more like a hole in the wall or an arrow slit; and then, in the upper right of the frame, two windows with open shutters, reflecting the pale yellow building opposite so that they seem to glow, surrounded by giant plastic yellow and purple and white sunflowers, and with a red and gold Venetian flag suspended between them. It is a small corner of unexpected and incongruous and joyful exuberance.
Colour photo. In the centre of the image, a wooden mooring post, like a deep black line running from top to bottom of the frame, at the head of a V-shape of four other posts going back into the silvery gently rippled water of a wide canal. On the left of the frame, a moored black gondola. In the mid ground is the Salute basilica, with its two majestic domes, with the setting yellow-haloed sun just above it, making the building shimmer grey in the hazy light, and leaving a streak of golden flecks on the water. Further back, the low skyline of Giudecca island in the distance, and pale grey sky above.
A rectangular grey letterbox, with a silver covered slot for letters with 'poste' in capitals embossed on it. Below, someone has graffitied in white capitals "More love letters, please" and a heart with wings. In the background to the left, some greenery and the edge of a wooden bridge.
Colour photo taken looking up at five items of laundry hung on hangers from a washing line, with blue sky behind. From left to right, a pair of white running shorts, a black t-shirt, a thin white cotton dress, a white smock-like blouse, a black towel. The sun is shining from above and slightly behind, rendering the white garments backlit and see-through, so that all the seams are visible, and turning the white fabrics a warm ivory colour.