This is another night scene of St Marks Square. There were a lot of people here and I wanted to capture the energy of it. There are so many different perspectives you could take of this place, but this time I chose to include the crowds. The architecture makes the scene but I find it more interesting with people. High-resolution photography creates an opportunity to go back and people-watch. Often when I’m reviewing photos I’ll zoom in to observe some detail that was lost on me at the time. When taking photos I’m composing so even though I’m recording a scene I’ll miss a lot of details. Through the image I can go back and revisit much more of what was going on at the time. In that respect photography is a little like time travel; it takes us back to an event in a vivid way. Reviewing photos is not for our memory, but it fills in details we may not have been aware of at the time. In the end I’m left with a richer experience altogether.
I took this inside the 8th century Le sette Chiese at the center of Bologna. It’s a complex of buildings including a seminary, cathedral and museum. It’s worth a visit if you’re in the area. I will say that Italy has a lot of is Catholic churches and it’s easy to get overwhelmed with so may. Before you know it they all start running together and you can’t remember one form the other. At least that happens with me, so I look for things to take pictures of to remind me of something unique. In this case there were monks walking around attending to duties and I thought that was interesting. I try to be as discrete as possible in situations like this by putting the camera into silent shutter mode. That’s a camera setting and a way to take photos without any shutter noise. More and more cameras have that these days because it’s useful in a lot of settings, not just churches. Think for a moment of a golf swing or a recital and you can imagine how any sound might ruin the moment. Anyway, I’ve even set a button the camera to turn on silent shutter mode so I can quickly and quietly capture moments like this.
This is a small section of the Agbar Tower that I took one night while in Barcelona. I wasn’t even supposed to be there but the flights got cancelled due to weather back home. The tour company picked up the tab and I was fortunate to have a few extra days. Something I love about Barcelona is that people are out at all hours of the day and night. This was taken after midnight on a Sunday. No matter where I went I found people out walking or just hanging out. The colorful Agbar Tower is an iconic landmark and we stayed next-door at the Diagonal Barcelona. You can see it to the right with the Barcelona sign. It’s a hip hotel with nice spaces to chill like a rooftop pool and bar that provided great views of the city. Being so close to the tower made it easy to get back to the hotel. Whenever I took a taxi back I could just say, take me to the Agbar Tower. I’d definitely stay here again on my next visit, because even with three extra days it’s not nearly enough time to take it all in.
