Old Venice

[Rebel]

I visited Venice a few years ago and I'm just going through a few photos and re-processing them again.

Venice is becoming more consumed by tourism and commercialism everyday, scenes like this are becoming rare.

#1


#2 - Crop


#3 - B&W

[Shadowman]

Nicely captured. It's been about ten years since I was there, what are the signs of commercialism you witnessed? Hopefully it wasn't the pigeon guy.

[Wavelength]

Excellent image...an old lady was watching you

[Rebel]

Nicely captured. It's been about ten years since I was there, what are the signs of commercialism you witnessed? Hopefully it wasn't the pigeon guy.

Thanks both!

John, there are more and more designer label outlets popping up everywhere and more Venetians are having to sell up as they can't afford the rising property prices there.

[Shadowman]

Thanks both!

John, there are more and more designer label outlets popping up everywhere and more Venetians are having to sell up as they can't afford the rising property prices there.

Matt,

Not surprising, probably still boils down to location/location, the brand name merchants try to position themselves at tourist hotspots. The traditional merchants need to align themselves with the travel agencies, that's the best way to drive business to their location. It'll cost them to get the referrals but the only way to stay viable.

[george013]

Nice picture. It's a view you see many times in Italy.

Venice had 175.000 inhabitants after the war. Now there're 60.000. And 30.000.000 tourists every year. That's 500 times more tourists as inhabitants. I was looking for a documantary "I love Venice" but can't find it in English. Maybe you can.


George

[bnnrcn]

I think I have seen this image of yours before and this one looks more contrasty. I like the composition. I find the shadows a bit too strong but may be it is intentional

[Sam W]

Interesting shot Matt. I like the variety of textures i.e. soft, hard, light and dark. I also like the various elements including the lady in the window. You seem to have the knack for capturing nice photos.

[Dave Humphries]

Interesting shot Matt. I like the variety of textures i.e. soft, hard, light and dark. I also like the various elements including the lady in the window. You seem to have the knack for capturing nice photos.

+1

Yes the lady in the window really makes the shot work IMHO.

PS
I was playing about with LyteBox and wondered about a crop that just excludes the left most duct/chimney thing - this places the lady a little more to the left of centre, without losing too much of the (scarily) way wall holding up the building below it.

[Kaye Leggett]

I like it, but I wouldn't have known it was Venice if you hadn't said as there is no water or other venetian trademark.

I was there last summer and loved it, especially early in the morning when there was no-one around and have a similar photo with a man watering his window boxes. Lovely place, unique and thankfully still some lovely little areas where the 'average' tourist doesn't bother to go.

[Rebel]

Thanks all, I have made the suggested crop and tried a B&W version.

#2 - Crop


#3 - B&W

[Dave A]

Very nice image Matt. I like crop #2 the best in color.

Dave

[John 2]

Definitely the colour for me. Brings out the age more.

[bnnrcn]

The cropped color image is my fav Matt

[DanK]

A very interesting shot. I agree that the crop is better. However, in the lytebox, both look overprocessed to me. It's not as apparent in the reduced-size images.

[NorthernFocus]

Interesting scene, Matt. I agree the woman looking out the window adds a lot to the shot.

Next month we'll be making our first visit to Italy with Venice on our agenda for the first week in May. Prices for rooms there were much higher than elsewhere. But one can hardly visit Italy without taking in Venice

[Rebel]

Interesting scene, Matt. I agree the woman looking out the window adds a lot to the shot.

Next month we'll be making our first visit to Italy with Venice on our agenda for the first week in May. Prices for rooms there were much higher than elsewhere. But one can hardly visit Italy without taking in Venice

I stayed just outside Venice in a place called Mestre (which is a nice place in itself) and then caught a 10 minute bus journey into Venice.

Enjoy your trip

[Rebel]

A very interesting shot. I agree that the crop is better. However, in the lytebox, both look overprocessed to me. It's not as apparent in the reduced-size images.

Overprocessed in what way Dan, I have only really adjusted contrast and sharpened the image.

[DanK]

Overprocessed in what way Dan, I have only really adjusted contrast and sharpened the image.

Well, it may just be me, but when I put the bottom one into LyteBox (it blows up larger on my monitor than the first one), it looks both oversharpened and oversaturated to me. For example, I see this in looking at the woman's face, the crumbling bricks, and the second building on the right.

If you applied a strong contrast adjustment using many of the common tools, that could explain the saturation, as it will exaggerate the color channels. I have had this happen to me when adding contrast to landscapes taken on gray days, when I really cranked up contrast. There are a couple of ways to avoid this, if that is what is happening. The simplest in photoshop is just to change the blend mode of the adjustment layer, say, a curves adjustment, to luminance. The other is to work in LAB mode.

But again, this may just be me.

[Mike Buckley]

In addition to the other compliments, I would like to add that you've brought out some wonderful texture.

I agree with Dan about the saturation and sharpening being a bit too much at least for me. However, considering that this look is consistent with your overall approach to post-processing, I think it should be left as is.