When I was in Salerno it rained like cats and dogs. Italy had been in a drought that was just broken with a few days of heavy rain. Despite that I was happy to walk around looking for compositions while sheltering under entryways. I took this during one particularly heavy downpour. I was forced to stay in one spot for an extended period, which in retrospect was a good thing. It’s sometimes better to pick a spot and let the world come to you. If you wait patiently, all kinds of interesting scenes will appear no matter where you are. This is in an old shopping district of Salerno. The buildings and shops looked like they haven’t changed much in a hundred years. I got the sense that some shop keepers carried on traditions from one generation to the next. As the rain let up I continued to walk and eventually the narrow streets opened up into a newer section of town. The shops there were brand-name boutiques you’d recognize in any mall. As for me I preferred the character of the old section much more.
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.
