Five Cloudy Pieces, This Afternoon

And one additional image as a color example, to demonstrate that the mononchrome images above are not manipulated except by the application of the digital equivalent of a green filter on an old film camera: the clouds really were that distinct today.

Maritime Republic

Tourists from within Italy began showing up in Venice about 10 days ago--at least that's when I started to notice them--and now with hotels beginning to re-open and free movement allowed within the Schengen Area the city is busier than it has been since the end of February. And though the number of tourists is a small fraction of what had become the horrific norm, the contrast to lock-down mode is, nevertheless, rather jarring.

The four-day national holiday weekend that concluded yesterday with the Festa della Repubblica certainly had everything to do with the latest influx of visitors and today's local newspaper headlines all trumpeted the crowded conditions on trains, vaporetti, and beaches, and the absence of face masks (which are no longer required in public, though today I noticed that a majority of people, myself included, continue to wear them).

Unprepared, or at least unused to the foot traffic, we thought to escape from it yesterday into the lagoon--only to find, as you can see in these three images--that plenty of other people had the same idea. Gusting wind and water traffic (usually in excess of posted speed limits) made for a choppy afternoon, and even our usual refuge in the barene pictured just below resembled a parking lot. While the crowds of both people and boats at the bacan (or long sand bar extending roughly perpendicular from Sant' Erasmo's beach), a favorite local summertime destination partly pictured in the last picture below, were so extensive as to exceed the capabilities of my camera's panorama mode. What you see at the bottom of this post is just a small fragment of the scene. 

Mazzorbo Afternoon, Church of Santa Caterina

The Rowing Lesson, Grand Canal, This Evening

Swallows and Clouds (and One Gull), Early This Morning: 9 Images

As Quiet As a Library

The arcade running outside (and beneath) the Biblioteca Marciana has in recent months been as quiet as the proverbial library, even at times of the day and night when it would typically be bustling--if not flat out packed. It will be interesting to see how that will change in the coming weeks as Venice continues to move out of lock-down mode; especially beginning in June, when some tourism might return.

I almost always try to avoid posting 2 views of the same scene, but in this case I couldn't make up my mind which to use. Both were long exposures using only a very small very portable Gumby-like tripod called the Miggo Splat recommended to me by Marco Missiaja at his shop here in Venice. The angle of view of the top image seemed a necessity as much of a choice, until I remembered that by holding the ends of the tripod's legs firmly against a solid vertical surface one can capture images from heights and locations not amenable to a regular full-scale tripod (the results of which are visible above, which was captured from above eye level). 

Buona Fortuna (4 Views), This Evening