IMAGES OF THE EXPEDITION

The Hudson River Expedition would not have been the same without our photographer, Nereo Zane. He captured some images that will remain on my “favorites” list for a long time. His dedication to recording the expedition has provided us all with the ability to really look back and remember things as great as they were.
I first met Nereo Zane in September of 2000 in the city he’d grown up in, Venice, Italy.
I had originally contacted him in seven months earlier; I’d seen a photo of his posted on his website and I wrote to tell him how much I liked it.

Here’s the photo:

We traded e-mails quite a bit but once we met in Venice, we became fast friends. My family and his family spent a lot of time together and we looked forward to seeing them each time we returned. Nereo and I have covered Venice many times over, on foot and by boat. I don’t know which amazed me more – his ability to find his way through the maze that is Venice, or the speed at which he walks. The Zane family has lived on the mainland in Padova for a long time but Nereo still knows his old home town like the back of his hand. Not only does he know how to traverse Venice, he knows how to photograph it too. Each time I’ve “speed-walked” through the canal city with Nereo, we’ve taken photos, sometimes side-by-side. Sure enough, once I’ve arrived home and we’ve emailed photos to each other, well let’s just say that his look like Ansel Adams in color while mine resemble photos taken by a five-year-old.

The team celebrates after arriving at the Marlboro Yacht Club 45 minutes ahead of schedule.

In the above image you can see the chase boat in the corner on the left. Throughout the expedition, we wore many different shirts. There was our official jersey, with its red and white stripes (like Chris and I are wearing here), there were white polo shirts provided by Ristorante da Ivo (not shown in this photo), there were red T-shirts from Casino di Venezia (John wears one in this photo) and there were long-sleeved gray polo shirts from Ali Laguna (as seen on Vittorio, Enzo and Bepi).

In the days to come, I’ll post more of my favorite images captured by Nereo. I hope you’ll enjoy them as much as I do.