Milan monochrome morning
Early morning sunlight casting long shadows on the flagstones and marble mosaics of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, Milan, Lombardy, Italy. Image © fotoVoyager 2009.
I haven’t worked with black and white film since the advent of affordable digital SLRs and I can’t say I miss the roller coaster lottery of developing and printing, though it was quite a satisfying craft when it worked out as you expected. I do miss the graphic boldness of a high contrast monochrome image though and some pictures – like these – are just begging for this treatment. Because my workflow involves Lightroom to process the images (a new digital craft not dissimilar to old school developing) it was easy to convert them to greyscale and adjust the tones to my liking to give this classic contre-jour feel, a timeless bold expressiveness that concentrates the viewer’s eye to the composition and lighting that colour sometimes disguises.
These images were taken on the first morning I had in Milan without rain. I wandered round soaking wet for two days scouting for locations and potential shots before the weather turned to my advantage and transformed the gloomy industrious city into the more picturesque Italian town I was looking for.
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1/125 second, f16 to f22, ISO200 20mm
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Gondola workshop, Venice, Italy
The traditional squero of the Domenico Tramontin e Figli boat builders in the Dorsoduro district of Venice. Image © fotoVoyager 2008.
Often called the Squero di San Trovaso after the white marble church with leaning campanile behind it, this working boatyard has become a tourist attraction in its own right. One of just three left in Venice, this family company still manufactures and repairs gondolas and other wooden boats in the same way as they have since 1884. As every guide book will tell you, the wooden Alpine chalet style decorations are indicative of the original craftsmen’s Dolomite roots (there were few carpenters in Venice – no trees, see?) though Domenico Tramontin learnt his trade at the Squero Casal dei Servi in Cannaregio, now home to the Arzaná society dedicated to the preservation of local nautical history and customs.
From across the Rio della San Trovaso you can watch these skilled men (women? Doing a traditional job in a family firm? This is Italy, you’ll be lucky) patiently maintaining and re-caulking gondolas. Presumably they need a regular 5000 nautical mile service. It looks like steady and satisfying work; there’s not many 21st Century jobs where you can watch the fruit of your labours bob past and say ‘I made that’. Need a new gondola? Yours for €20,000 – a snip for the 45 days of craftsmanship that goes into making one I’d say.
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1/125, f13, ISO200 28mm
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Ponte Sant’ Angelo, River Tiber, Rome
Bernini’s marble angels on the Ponte Sant’ Angelo reflecting in the Tiber as if flows past the Castel Sant’ Angelo in the Prati district of Italy’s beautiful capital city. Image © fotoVoyager 2008.
Even for a European used to being surrounded by historical landmarks, Rome is jaw-droppingly ancient. Everywhere you go, the place is littered iconic sites. I took a break, plonked my kit down, then realised I was sitting on a 2000 year old section of column, apparently just left lying around. It’s not that the local conservators don’t look after it, there’s just so much of it.
This picture is a good illustration of how this charming, crowded city is overflowing with cultural monuments. The white marble angels were planned by the late Renaissance artist Bernini in 1669 to decorate the bridge built in 134. Yes, that’s AD134. Through the arches you can see the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica created by Michelangelo, and the bridge itself spans the Tiber to the Roman Emperor Hadrian’s mausoleum that was later converted to Castel Sant’ Angelo fortress from whose terrace Puccini’s operatic heroine throws herself to her death in Tosca. See what I mean? The whole place is an order of magnitude older and more magnificent that most other European cities. I’m willing to bet there’s more scooters per head of population than anywhere outside Asia too. Don’t bother trying to drive in it, the traffic’s crazy.
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1/125 second, f13, ISO200 28mm
8682 x 3032 pixels. Please don’t steal this image, it’s how I make my living.