Venice, it’s Lagoon, it’s sunset views

During my workshop I very often have requests for a sunset shooting session; most of people is worried because they have no tripod, no ND filters, no colored filters, no accessories if not their camera. I’m sorry for smartphone passionate photographers but this is not the right post for you. I’m an old style photographer, still looking through the rangefinder system of my prime lens camera, manual focusing and manual set it up also. Is this the right or the best approach? I don’t know but this is the approach I’m using since 1979 and it’s still working, at least for me. Anyway, going back to sunset… even if you don’t have all the long listed accessories you could read on Google, you can take your photos.

Here below some examples of photographies I shot using a 35 mm lens, 100 ISO, no other accessory, neither a tripod. Doesn’t matter the camera you have, the LIGHT is your main subject and, in this shooting, your main problem.

Here is a bridge in Cannaregio area, in Venice, of course. The light is soft and shadows long enough to have a nice effect on the right side.

Being a street photographer, I also look for other, different situation and I “saw” this:

Not so difficult;a typical shoot from the hip. Walking on Fondamenta della Misericordia..

Close to the Ghetto area; as you can see, the sun is going down but shadows and colors are still very nice.

Walking through San Girolamo area, you can have a look to the area called Case Nove; this area is pretty new and modern, compared to all the other buildings in Venice; this place, offers a lot of options to create unusual but nice compositions.

Take a look around… you are in the backside area of Venice… you have Mestre and Marghera at the horizon… but you also have the lagoon in front of you; and the sunset is outstanding… not much clouds… so, turn on you camera and work on this: which metering system you will use? spot, center-weighted average, or multi-zone metering mode? Where is the focus point? Let me know your choice!

Creaste sequences, don’t “waste” the limited time that sunset offers you taking hundreds of shots from the same place; move around the place, change your composition, reframe your shots…

Be Creative !!!

For any further information, feel free to contact me directly using the form on the website

You may also like