Bacino Orseolo at Night - With and Without Flash

One night in Venice, I broke away after dinner and headed over to Bacino Orseolo.

I brought my best tripod, a new flash unit, and a remote trigger.
I did use the flash a few times, but ended up (as I had expected) concentrating mostly on lock-down long exposures, using either a timer or the remote trigger.

My hope was to try and recreate what Nereo Zane had done back in 2007. This time I had a better camera and hoped to come away with something worthy of posting. Nereo has taken some amazing images; he's solely responsible for my affinity for long-exposures.

for today's post I'm putting up two images of the same gondola.

Almost all of the gondolas in Bacino Orseolo are stored in a similar manner - side-tied in an enormous raft (see my post from November 27th of 2007), but there's always one moored along the steps in front of the bookstore nearest Piaza San Marco.

First, here's a shot of that gondola with a flash:
Notice how well the flash picks up every little detail...and imperfection.

Now here's another shot of the same boat in long-exposure with no flash:

Sure, the flash captures more detail, but it seems to me that this process does a better job of showing the true essence of the boat.

I'll post some more from this session in days to come.