Rialto - Una veduta di Venezia, appena dopo il tramonto

Trivia:

Venice, (Or Venezia as they call it in Italian, is an experience.

It is one of the most interesting and lovely places in the world. This sanctuary on a lagoon is virtually the same as it was six hundred years ago, which adds to the fascinating character. Oh, well. If you had thought that it would be an immensely serene and pleasurable vacation when you get there, you have mistaken. It is heavily touristed (there are slightly more tourists than residents), and you will find scores and scores of people everywhere. But Venice is unparalleled to any other city mankind has ever built - let alone comparing it with any other Italian or an European city: hence, the romantic charm remains.

In this digital age, this translates to an overwhelming wealth of information all around the internet from all sorts of sources including the authorities, tour companies, bloggers, wikis and what not; replete with hour by hour itineraries. So planning a trip to Venice cannot be hard and you certainly wouldn’t need any suggestions from me. However, there is one important bit that I would like to share. There is a school of thought that summer is the worst time to visit Venice as it can get unusually hot and often humid. Adding to the woes are the fly infestations in the canals, more tourists who have planned their vacation to Italy to enjoy the tropical climate and the foul smell emanating from the algae. Spring and fall are supposedly the best time to be in Venice. However, if you have never been in venice and can make a visit only during the summer (just like my predicament was), make that trip and you would most likely not regret it.

I plan to do a few more posts from Venice. So I will not make this section top heavy in the first post itself and hence, I plan on making this section a little series in itself, that will extend itself logically, as I publish more photos from this trip.

The Scene:

The Rialto is and has been for many centuries the financial and commercial centre of Venice. It is an area of the San Polo sestiere of Venice, Italy, also known for its markets and for the Rialto Bridge across the Grand Canal. The area was settled by the ninth century, when a small area in the middle of the Realtine Islands either side of the Rio Businiacus was known as the Rivoaltus, the "high bank". Soon, the Businiacus became known as the Grand Canal, and the district became the Rialto, referring only to the area on the left bank.

Most of the buildings in the Rialto were destroyed in a fire in 1514, the sole survivor being the church San Giacomo di Rialto, while the rest of the area was gradually rebuilt. The Fabriche Vechie dates from this period, while the Fabbriche Nuove is only slightly more recent, dating from 1553. The statue Il Gobbo di Rialto was also sculpted in the sixteenth century. The area is still a busy retail quarter, with the daily Erberia greengrocery market, and the fish market on the Campo della Pescheria.

The Story:

As it is with every city trip, I plan to shoot that one spot which would distinctively identify that city when you raise its name. And I time this shot at dusk to get the best colors and make it publish worthy. So when I did my research for the Venice trip, I narrowed it down to the “Rialto Bridge”. But as you can see, there is no Bridge in the frame. That makes the story all more interesting, isn’t it?

After our tryst with the touristy destinations on Day 1, we decided to put our tired legs to rest. But who would want to get back to a hotel and sleep through when there is about 3-4 hours left to the next big thing.

One of the things that I also decided whilst planning for Vencie was not to ride the Gondola and take trips on the Vaporetto instead. A couple of websites suggested to make this trip on the slow moving #1 vaporetto. It covers the entire length of the Grand Canal and more and stops at every designated stop in each of the six sestiere (or neighborhoods). So we started with a leisurely cruise from the starting point and settled down on the best seats in the boat. All according to the plan.

What we didn’t account for was the fact that nothing sticks to the time in Venice. Everything is pretty laid back. By the time we ended up on the last stop, it was quarter to nine and there was no way that I’m getting back to Rialto to get that shot that I had in mind as the sunset was only about 30 minutes away. To top it, I’m going to be on a shaky boat and getting crappy, touristy pictures. I tried to hide my disappointment and carry on with the return journey. You must have seen my face during that time. I assume that it was very close to, as my grandmother would say, a monkey that ate ginger. My friends did all they could to console me.

What ought to be a slow, pleasure ride turned into agony. The boatmen were in no hurry and they took their own time in pulling into and out of the vaporetto stands. There was no race against time. It was just me cribbing that I would lose that opportunity to shoot the sunset.

We finally arrived at the Rialto about 20 minutes past Sunset. The intense blue hour already past. The tourist mobs were continuing to throng to the main attraction in the city to check it off their lists and savor on some fine Italian cousine. As I descended the boat, I ran amuck trying to get a decent shot of the bridge - until that last bit of light lasts. Unfortunately, every perceivable viewpoint was already taken – not by pedestrians or tourists – but by establishments and permanent hawking stations. More disappointment. I continued to walk towards the bridge, set shop at the foot and half-heartedly started shooting the other bank.

No real composition or thoughts. It was exactly  the result of not doing enough research and more importantly not scouting the location well in advance. Having passed through the bridge a couple of times that day, I had assumed that I could sneak into some vantage point and get that shot that I had wanted. That was the perfect recipe for disaster. This shot that you see is the one that wasn’t meant to be.

A few seconds after I started my long exposure, I heard someone calling out my name. From a distance. It was my buddy Binish who was calling me from the top of the bridge. I wasn’t prepared to move as getting up there, finding a spot amidst the flock and setting shop would translate to more losing more time and would ensure that I don’t even get whatever I was getting at that time. The voice grew louder. I couldn’t ignore him anymore. I picked up my fully set tripod as is and ran to the top of the bridge. There he was, trying to hold a spot for me right next to someone who seemed to be a serious photographer who had set shop and was already making pictures of this dramatic scene that had just begun to drape the closing screens in front of us. I heaved a sigh of relief, for this spot was far better than anything that I could have imagined and offered compositional prospects. I’m not sure if I had thanked Binish enough for helping me get this: If I haven’t, I do it here: Thank you sire!

This, by no means, is a perfect shot. Ask me to point the pitfalls, I can go ranting for quite sometime. But it is a lot better than nothing that looks like Venice, right? It is one of those instances in life, when you have to settle down on Plan B in life.

The Shot:

ISO 100 | Canon 10-22 @ 10mm | f/14 | 15 sec

Credits:

Wikipedia, Wikitravel and all those tour guides over the internet.