A beautiful sunset over the timeless city of Venice as dancing gondolas point towards the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore from St. Mark's Square.
I frantically sprinted around St. Mark's looking for good compositions as the sunset painted the clouds shades of orange and red. Finally as the light was fading and the sky was turning pink, I found these gondolas looking out towards the island and church of San Giorgio Maggiore. Since I was flying by the seat of my pants anyway, I thought I'd try something different to get a more unique take on Venice. I took a 30 second long exposure to smooth the water and blur the gondolas. I took another exposure for the late sunset to bring out the pinks and purples in the clouds. Finally I took one last exposure during blue hour when the lights turned on.
I manually blended all 3 exposures together in Photoshop to come up with a final composite of the scene. I love that the image is dynamic yet balanced as the blurred motion of the gondolas plays nicely with the static posts. Similarly the blues and pinks in the sky, water, and gondolas harmonize well with the warm tones of the posts and buildings in the background with the city lights turned on.
All in all, a great way to start off my travels in Venice and not a bad way to spend my 4th of July!
