This is something I wanted to do for a very long time: making pictures of the Carnival of Venice / Carnevale di Venezia. More than a year ago I started planning for this trip, with a visit to the official website of Carnevale di Venezia as the first step. About half a year ago, everything started to become very concrete: I booked my flight in September (and at that time the cheapest tickets were already sold out!) and started searching for a hotel.
The trip was really worth while: I felt like a kid in a candy store. At first I wondered if I would see a lot of people wearing nice masks, nice costumes and would be able to photograph them, but when I entered the San Marco square, it was full of people in really nice costumes, with a lot of effort put into all the little details. Really amazing! (OK, there were also some idiots in stupid dresses with even more stupid wigs and hats, people who belong at Rosenmontag, not in the classy Carnival of Venice). The people also took the time to pose for the photographers, something I really appreciate. Thanks!
I wasn’t the only photographer to make pictures of the Carnival of Venice… Usually there was crowd around the ‘models’. And that shows in the pictures: very often there were disturbing figures in the background, that’s the reason why I cropped many images to a square format.
A funny fact is that I was addressed a number of times by other photographers, who admired my camera and asked for my findings (yes, my most recent camera, a Sony A7R, is a real jewel, put a decent lens on it, e.g. the Sony 135mm f1.8, and you have a fantastic combination).
Since I made so many pictures (around 1500) and even after a thorough selection I still have quite a lot of good ones left, I created two galleries. The one on top of this page contains 22 pictures and then there is the extra large version, with 88 pictures of carnival in Venice.
To summarize: the Carnival of Venice / Carneval di Venezia is really recommended for a passionate photographer! Chances are that I will return in the future.
Eddy
