Venice Through a Filter – A Pictorial Love Letter to an Old Flame (or This Francesco’s Venice!)

With age comes change and Venice has changed so very much. She is no longer the city I fell in love with long before my first visit in November 1986. Then, she was busy but not over-crowded (and November was genuinely ‘off-season’, with few tourists). Since then, Venice has become a victim of her own seductive beauty. Now there is no real off-season and the only way to avoid the crowds for a couple of hours is to get up before the sun (this is where it helps to know your way around!). Back in ‘86 you heard Italian spoken everywhere, now the most common language seems to be English; with the inevitable result that Venice sometimes no longer even feels like an Italian city (although of course, she will always look like one!).

Of course, as a tourist myself I have to acknowledge the fact that I am part of the problem too, but I believe that the real problem lies not with repeat visitors, who return again and again (one definition of sustainable tourism), out of genuine love for somewhere, but with the day-trippers and the ‘instagrammers’, those crossing it off a ‘bucket list’, or going just to say they’ve been there (and to take a few selfies to prove it!).

Of course, I won’t say that I’ll never go back, but my last visit was the one I enjoyed the least. The thought of never seeing her again is one I don’t want to contemplate, but one that I have to.

So, this set of pictures may be my final love letter to Venice, in which I have tried to capture a genuinely retro-feel and look, to restore her faded beauty and her reputation as the world’s most romantic city. ‘Venice Through a Filter’ doesn’t only refer to the physical filters I put in front of my lens, but also to the filter of my memories. I’ve known her for almost 40 years and these pictures are the way I prefer to remember her. As with any old flame, the fire never quite goes out, it just burns less intensely as the years pass.

Nothing here was done in post-processing, all effects were achieved in-camera at the time the pictures were taken. For all her faults, she remains, both a beauty and a city of dreams.

A Venezia, Ciao Bellissima.