At the tip of Dorsoduro, the Venetian Quarter across the Grand Canal from San Marco, sits the Dogana di Mare. The Dogana di Mare is a colonnaded customs station built in the 1600s that now houses a museum (as so many grand buildings in Venice do).

On Saturday when I visited the promenade outside the Dogana di Mare an old sailing vessel was tied-off. I put my camera on the tripod, added a neutral density filter and a polarizer, and made a long exposure (3 seconds). My idea was to capture the softness in the motion of the boat in the waves, while leaving the stone colonnade of the old customs house steady and strong.

For me, the title of this image, Venice Perspective, has two meanings. First, there’s no doubt that lines of perspective are crucial to the composition; the eye follows the lines of the promenade towards the colonnade at the end of the Dorsoduro island. More significantly, Venice is one of those rare geographic places that can shift one’s conscious—your perspective, if you will—simply by the act of visiting and being open to what Venice has to offer.

Exposure and processing info: 28mm, +4 ND filter and circular polarizer, 3 seconds at f/20 and ISO 250, tripod mounted; processed in Adobe Camera RAW, Photoshop, and using Topaz plug-ins.

Related image: Venice of Dreams.