"Around Arsenale", venice, August 2007

Just along from our small guest house off the Riva degli Schiavoni is the area known as Arsenale, nothing to do with the North London team my Son supports (deluded as he is) but refers to what once was the greatest shipyard in the world.

I guess the Venetians who live in these apartments don't have gardens so they have to hang their smalls out for all the world to see. Makes quite a good colour photo but I can't be bothered with such things as colour!

I really grabbed this shot because of the little boy playing with the umbrella underneath the washing line, perhaps he's stopping drips falling on his head.

All for now.

Canal Study, Venice August 2007

I don't seem to get anywhere near enough "printing time", as you can see I'm still working my way through the Venice negs from last year. I particularly like this image which was taken whilst we were strolling around the "Ghetto" area of Venice on a very quiet Sunday afternoon. In the early 16th Century Jews in Venice were confined in this area and the term "Ghetto" was used I believe for the first time.

In my darkroom I made my usual 8X10" print on resin coated paper, I tend to do this to a) see if the image is worth enlarging onto 12x16 fibre (proper) paper and b) with a view to scanning the photo for publishing in the blog.

The rather dreamlike quality was achieved by laying a sheet if tissue paper over the paper on the enlarger easel for about 3/4 of the total exposure time, a brief bath in photographic bleach lightened the highlights somewhat.

I now have a 12X16 version hanging on my wall next to two violins that I will show you soon.