Finally in Venice /  by Mario Mirabile

My planned, then postponed, then agonized over trip to Italy has finally happened. Originally planned for 2020, I kept waiting for something like a dose of plague to put it all on hold again. However, I took off on February 12th and won’t be back till April 24th.

The flights were uneventful and went according to schedule. I think I totalled about five hours sleep - better than nothing, but I still arrived in Venice feeling wrung out. I made my way to the airport ferry terminal and made my way slowly across the lagoon in the Alilaguna ferry. The first sight of Venice proper from this route is not particularly attractive, being somewhat industrial and port-like, but as soon as we turned into the Canaregio Canal and passed under the Ponte dei Tre Archi, things started looking up. The ferry isn’t really designed for sightseeing as it has to pass under a few low bridges on this route, but what little I could see really put a smile on my face.

I found my way to my apartment with some difficulty (I was expecting to be met at the ferry stop…..), but finally got there with some over-the-phone help. I confess I was disappointed with what I found, and had some trouble reconciling it with the pictures and description on the AirBnB listing, but I’ve settled in now, and will make do for my stay here. But, it’s a great location, barely 100m from the Rialto market, and perhaps 300m from the bridge.

As I’ve arrived in the middle of Carnevale, Venice is jumping, despite the winter cold. I’m not sure how the locals cope, although at least one method seems to be to take to them with a stick! Masks (not the medical kind) everywhere, particularly around St. Mark's Square, much of which sadly looks like a construction site. The "good" photographic spots, such as the Accademia Bridge at dawn are well patronized, and while I'll be getting along to them I really want to explore all the places I didn't have time to see last time, and hopefully uncover my own vision of Venice.

So far, the crowds are manageable, except for the weekend. I’m hopeful things will become relatively quiet after that, but time will tell.

Masquerade /  by Mario Mirabile

I used to think it quite odd to see people wearing surgical masks in public in the days before the pandemic. I wondered what they were afraid of, and would feel quite smug that I wasn’t so paranoid as they seemed to be. It’s now obvious that they were just ahead of the curve.

The mask has now become commonplace and frequently mandated. Where I used to pat my pockets to make sure I had my wallet and phone before I left the house, I now make sure I have a mask as well in case I have to enter a shop. A mask can be a nuisance (especially if you’re wearing glasses), a fashion item, and all to frequently a carelessly discarded piece of litter. But however you look at them, I think they’re here for a long time to come.

An endless void /  by Mario Mirabile

YouTube is a bit like an endless rabbit hole. You poke your nose in because it looks interesting, follow it a short way, and before you know it you’ve been wandering aimlessly for what seems like hours. If you’re having trouble finding focus (as I have been over the last couple of years), a brief diversion can become a serious waste of time. That’s not to say there’s no useful information to be found. It is in fact a great source of educational, informative and entertaining material.

Random browsing led to me finding a curious surprise down one branch of the rabbit hole, and I ended up following it for quite a distance. It involved the common everyday soap bubble, and the remarkable psychedelic colours and patterns revealed given the right conditions. I ended up spending quite a bit of time fiddling with dish-soap solutions, light sources (a large softbox and flash) and light blocks, camera angles and settings. It became a fascinating way to waste a few hours when we could hardly leave the house, and the results were fascinating. The bubbles lead rich, varied and tragically short lives. No two are ever the same, and following their swirling forms and colours from their incarnation to their final pop was mesmerizing.

I don’t know what the physics of the effects are, but it probably has something to do with refraction. It doesn’t matter in any case, and it did keep me away from YouTube for a while.

I'm still here /  by Mario Mirabile

The last 18 months have been so strange it’s hard to know where to start. We’ve endured the most protracted lock-down of anywhere in the world and lived with uncertainty and an inability to make concrete plans. I’ve cancelled long planned trips, learned to work from home and struggled with anger, lack of motivation and occasional moments of darkness. While there are signs that life is starting to return to some semblance of normality, I doubt we’ll ever be quite the same again.

Certainly, my photography hasn’t flowed like it used to. Much of my work focused on the Melbourne CBD and surrounds, and I’ve hardly been there since the start of the pandemic. I just haven’t been able to click with the urban vibe close to home, but I have managed to find a few outlets, including some I haven’t explored before. Over the next few posts, I’ll share a few of them with you.

My camera club hasn’t been meeting in the flesh over the course of the pandemic. We have managed the odd field trip here and there, but for the most part we’ve met via Zoom, which has worked surprisingly well. We’ve had several virtual field trips with a variety of topics, mostly found close to or in home. For no particular reason, I’ve chosen to interpret these with self-portraits on a few occasions, so I think I’ll start with those.

Lockdown city /  by Mario Mirabile

The lockdown law was quite clear – stay home unless you had a very good (and clearly defined) reason to go out. Harsh, perhaps, but it did seem to have limited the spreads of the virus. I understand the law and the reason behind it, and while I complied, I was missing my regular walks around the city.

Towards the end of the strictest period of lockdown, I had cause to go into the office, and naturally enough I took my camera along. The trains were (as expected) very quiet, making it easy to maintain several metres distance from the nearest other passengers. The stations likewise were nearly abandoned. There were more people than I expected in the main thoroughfares, but the side streets, laneways and arcades were a completely different story. Popular dining, shopping and tourist haunts which just a few weeks earlier had been bustling were all but abandoned, with just the odd masked figure going about their business almost apologetically. Even in the traditional lunchtime peak, the few eateries which remained open were forlorn. It was eerie enough, and I can only imagine what it must have been like at the peak of the lockdown.

The last hurrah /  by Mario Mirabile

Two months ago, on the last weekend before the start of isolation, we had an all too brief weekend away at Aireys Inlet. Even though the weather wasn’t particularly co-operative, the memory of having the freedom to walk around without feeling guilty is something to hang on to. It seems like a distant dream now, but the photos I took that weekend proves it actually happened.

Remember when /  by Mario Mirabile

Just a couple of days ago I was reflecting on how long it had been since the start of Isolation. I figured a month or so, but when I looked back through my Lightroom catalogue for the date of the last photos I’d captured in the city, I found it was the best part of seven weeks. And that was a one-off trip into the city, as I’d elected to work from home a week before that. It certainly didn’t feel like 8 weeks since I’d been free to roam my city streets at will.

They say time flies when you’re having fun. I’m not sure I’ve been having fun, but for me at least it hasn’t really been a hardship. I’ve had work to mark the days, although most days I have to think hard to remember what day it is as they all merge into each other. I’m sure I’ll get back into town soon, but until then I’ll have to subsist on memories. Like these, from the last couple of weeks before we all went into hiding.

The year that was - Travels with my camera, part 2 /  by Mario Mirabile

Later in the year I had a chance to head both into the mountains and down to the sea. The snow season was very patchy, but we were lucky to arrive soon after the end a big dump lasting several days. We had great weather and left just as the rain was setting in.

We weren’t as lucky with the weather at Port Fairy in November, but I still managed to find some good images and had lots of fun experimenting with slow shutter speed on the surf.

The year that was - Travels with my camera, part 1 /  by Mario Mirabile

While I spend and enjoy most of my time shooting around the city, I relish the opportunity to get out of town and breathe some fresh air. Last year I had trips to South Gippsland and Wilsons Prom, the Victorian high country and Port Fairy to give me a chance to flex my landscape muscles.

Once again I’ll break this into two posts, starting with South Gippsland and the Prom.

The year that was - Faces in the street , part 2 /  by Mario Mirabile

The images in this and the previous post are presented chronologically, and it came as no real surprise when I found most of the images come from the first half of the year. I feel like I experienced a creative slowdown in the second half year, and not for the first tine. Still, I’m sure things will flow again, given patience and time.

The year that was - Faces in the street /  by Mario Mirabile

I spend a lot of time wandering around the streets of Melbourne, watching and waiting for the light and composition to come together in just the right way. Sometimes the opportunities just seem to flow, and other times it feels like I’ll never get another picture. Still, patience is (usually) rewarded, and I end up with something I think is worthwhile. So much so, that I’ll post my top pics from the year over two days. Unlike yesterday’s post, these are all (more or less…) candid shots.

The year that was - Faces /  by Mario Mirabile

My website has been somewhat neglected this year, and I’m at something of a loss as to why. I have been regularly posting on Instagram, probably because it’s a bit quicker and easier, but I can’t really use that as an excuse. And I don’t think it’s lack of material either. When I sat down to review photos I’ve made this year, I was not exactly unhappy with what I found. While I’ve not been particularly prolific, I think there’s been enough interesting material to indicate the year hasn’t been a complete waste.

So, over the next few days, I’ll be posting images taken in 2019 in an attempt to bring you up to date with what I’ve been doing. Each post will be thematically related, and today I’ll start with street portraits of people I met on my wanderings. These are not candids (that will follow soon), but images where I saw an interesting opportunity and worked with the subject to get the shot.

I’ll try to be more regular in 2020, but I’m not making any promises.