Description
The photograph is taken from the boat itself, and it is this viewpoint that makes everything: in the foreground, the varnished mahogany deck, still wet with spray, reflects the light like a dark mirror; at the centre, the Italian flag, shot through with sunlight, blazes green, white and red above the wake. On either side of the canal, Venice glides past — a white stone doorway opening onto shadow, brick walls eaten away by the salt water, a line of boats moored at the foot of the facades. The sun, taken head-on, bursts into a star in the upper corner and scatters its reflections all the way onto the wood. The image conveys an experience more than a panorama: that of gliding through the city at water level, when the movement, the light and the wake still belong to the traveller.
