Venice Venice

The Grand Canal, Morning

The Rialto Bridge in early October, before eight in the morning. The palazzi on either bank were catching the first direct light of the day — that quality of gold that Mediterranean morning light has for perhaps forty minutes before it lifts into the harder light of mid-morning. A vaporetto working its crossing is the only moving element in the frame.

The Grand Canal has been photographed more times than any body of water in the world that is not a ocean. What survives that accumulation is the light — it is always slightly different from how it has been before, and the buildings, which have absorbed four or five centuries of being looked at, seem entirely indifferent to being looked at again.