I love to walk around places and notice details. Whether it's my home town or a famously spectacular city like San Francisco or New York, or even if it's empty wilderness, I'm always noticing little features and light effects.
One of the only reasons I still carry around a camera separate from my iPhone is that my Canon SX230HS has a really nice zoom lens and it lets me catch all sorts of details that would otherwise be difficult to notice, let alone get into a picture. It's especially good for high-up architectural details - the kinds of details that are so hard to see from the street that they're clearly labours of love or pure whimsy.
Venice turns out to be full of these little details everywhere.
All throught he city, at the Rialto, in church squares, down little narrow alleys, I kept stopping in my tracks to get a shot of a lovely plaque,
a nifty shop sign,
a terrific rooftop patio,
or a fleeting but stunning view.
(Note that all of the pictures in this blog can be clicked/tapped on to see in full size on Flickr.)
Venice has a distinctive window style, somewhere between Arabian and Gothic, modelled after details in the Ducal Palace. Once you start noticing them, they're everywhere:
Another only-in-Venice detail is the support archways that cross above narrow streets and help to keep the buildings separated.
The zoom lens was great for seeing the interesting chimneys in Venice. Some look like watch towers, others like ancient Roman columns:
The plaster walls of Venice make a great backdrop for plaques and, surprisingly quite common, little roadside shrines to Mary:
But it's the statues and sculptures that are often the most striking:
Many of the statues which look so impressive from the ground are rather the worse for wear when seen close up:
While others have details that you would never notice without a zoom lens:
The zoom lens is especially good at picking out the tops of church towers. For every no-longer-hidden antenna, there's a lovely vine or intricately detailed weather-vane flag that is hardly ever seen from below.
And of course there's graffiti - I don't know what most of it is about:
... but some of it is pretty obvious, and I have to say I agree (even if I may be part of the problem):
