Brenda Fishbaugh

December 2019 - Rocking Gondolas in Venice

Original

About the Image(s)

Canon 5D Mark IV Tamron 28-300 tripod
ISO 100 28mm f/16 3.2 seconds with ND filters

My cousin and I photographed this following my St.Mark's Square through the arch (that was November's pic with the lamp hanging that looked like a moon--flip back and look at my "after" pic with the globe removed at the bottom of the November thread).

Everyone has photographed the gondolas, so I tried a different look, inspired by a Scott Kelby video. The idea was to have the gondolas moving, but the rest of the photo very crisp.

It was very early dawn and we sat on the water's edge in pigeon poop and got splashed by waves, with tripods set as low as they would go. I used some ND filters and a long exposure to get the smooth water and show the movement in the gondolas.

I post processed by removing the ropes on the left, and the crane on the top right and playing with the sky a bit and bringing up the turquoise in the water.

I showed this to two friends and they hated it, as they couldn't get past the out-of-focus foreground. Thoughts?

5 comments posted

Alan Welch

I was confused at first with the out of focus but then saw the far buildings and realized what was being portrayed. I like it. Posted: 12/01/2019 11:28:14

Brenda Fishbaugh

Thanks, Alan. I wanted it to be out of focus enough you knew it was on purpose, but still could make out what you were seeing. Did you recognize them as gondolas? Or were they not identifiable? Posted: 12/01/2019 17:30:58

Sunil Mehta

Very nice image, more I see more I like it. It has the early morning look and feel about weather. Yes, this is how Venice is you have captured very well in this image. Posted: 12/01/2019 21:30:01

Richard Huang

Hi Brenda. It has good mood in the picture. The color looks pretty good, and the exposure is well controlled.

Couple of thoughts.
1) The overlap of the tower. I guess there must be many photographers there and it might be hard to adjust position. I might move a little bit to avoid that if possible.
2) Can you elaborate on the purpose of getting your camera low. I might try a higher position.
3) For the gondolas, I think that the blurry not enough. I might try a longer (or even much longer) exposure with darker filters. If it is really a quiet morning with no waves, taking a snapshot might be another option.
4) With gondolas getting that much space in the composition, I feel that it might be better to be sharp. With that much blurry (but not so blurry) area, I might crop out the shadow.

Again a nice picture, and you are the expert of long exposure...Cheers.
Posted: 12/01/2019 22:36:39

Larry Treadwell
(Group 67)

This is an interesting effect, but not really my personal preference. What you did worked well, but maybe could be a bit more blurred.

I have several crop suggestions. First the boat pole that merges with the tower might be adjusted to separate the two of them. Since the boats are the real subject maybe give them a bit of breathing room at the bottom edge and use their shadows to create leading lines to the boats. I would crop off the crowd of poles on the far left and the partial boat on the far right. The poles look very busy and the partial boat (since it is so small) looks lost. By cropping some of the dark sky you drive more attention to the boats and also help to shift the horizon line out of the middle.

Opps---maybe just barely crop off the pole on the right in my attached image.

Just some things to think about. Maybe try some variations andsee what you like. Posted: 12/05/2019 14:02:55

PID Digital Dialogue

Group 78