CITY Issue 51

AMATEUR HOUR Wanted: The essence of a city. (Sorry, postcard shots need not apply.) By Alex Garinger Every traveler has their Venice moment: that instant when they turn a corner, catch their first full glimpse of the Grand Canal, and just melt like the gelato dripping off their fingers. My Venice moment happened at the age of 16 on a rainy day in London. Wandering through the National Gallery, I found myself suddenly lost in the sight of the San Simeone Piccolo church, perched there on the upper reaches of the Grand Canal, kissed by an early afternoon Italian sun. Venetians and their children strolled beneath the church’s white steps, while fishermen and gondoliers, their oars thrust into the calm waters, navigated the nearby canal. It was just another day in Venice, except, of course, that in this oil painting by the master cityscape artist Canaletto, the year was 1738. Standing in the museum gallery, taking in that scene and the dozen others that hung on neighboring walls around me, I could smell the salty water splashing under the gondolas, could hear the commotion that accompanies a fruitful catch. Even as the gray London clouds darkened outside, I felt bathed in a warm Venetian light. I then immediately found the gift shop and bought the exhibit poster. Canaletto, whose real name was—naturally—Giovanni Antonio Canal, made a career out of convincing hopeless travel romantics like me that his massive, intricately realized city tableaus could transport them to the banks of the Grand Canal. The only difference between Canaletto’s 18th-century patrons and myself was that those wealthy Englishmen had actually once visited the city—quite recently, in fact, during a highly recommended stopover on their European Grand Tours. A full century before the first permanent photographs were made, these newfound Venice devotees were desperate to capture and preserve their visit on something far more tactile and considerably less fleeting than their own memories. Of course, they also wanted to show off to their friends back in London that they too had watched the pigeons flock to the Piazza San Marcos. And Canaletto obliged, painting these keepsake, wall-candy scenes of his beloved hometown with affectionate detail. Six years after first encountering Canaletto’s Venice, I finally arrived in the city in the midst of my own mini-tour of the Continent, hulking backpack flung over my shoulders and not a camera to my name. Two weeks earlier, I had fallen asleep in a Barcelona park, awaking to find my daypack wide open, my passport and wallet somehow untouched, but my brand new digital point-and-shoot gone without a trace. With it went a week of strolling the boulevards of Paris, my first (and last) bullfight in Madrid, and just hours earlier, the whimsical majesty of La Sagrada Familia. Now in Italy, as I searched for my hotel in a maddening, Woody Allen–esque zigzag over bridges and down back alleys, I suddenly had my second Venice moment: the Grand Canal peeked at me between two buildings up ahead and I abandoned my quest for a hot shower for an authentic taste of the city’s great thoroughfare. Here’s where other, perhaps more jaded travelers might try to expose Canaletto as a charlatan, his paintings merely a ruse. They’d fling spite at the packs of fanny-packed gawking tourists cruising the waters, they’d point out that it’s not exactly salty water you’re smelling on a summer day, and they’d argue that even the locals dream of one day escaping the city. ‘The Grand Canal? Eh, it’s all right.’ The Canaletto vision of Venice, to them, is no better than the Vegas version—a grandeur created in our imaginations by the countless stories and images we’ve encountered over the years of a city we’ve never actually visited. Once we finally do make it there, they’d say, we fool ourselves into thinking it’s as beautiful as what we’ve always seen depicted. Me? Venice had me at ciao, and I reached for the camera I didn’t have. Within minutes, I plunked down for a panoramic disposable, and over the next few days proceeded to try to capture—or perhaps, more accurately, recreate—every Canaletto-esque scene my amateur eye could find. A month later, I arrived back in the States, developed my photos the old fashioned way, and found it utterly impossible to explain to my friends and family why not a single shot truly embodied either of my Venice moments, why none had the power to transport you back to the banks of the Grand Canal. Of 4,007 entries to CITY’s travel photography competition, at least 60 staked claim to capturing the essence of Venice. Some came a lot closer than I did, but most fell into a familiar trap of trying to capture the postcard version of the city rather than uncovering and discovering its more intimate, hidden beauties. Would Canaletto’s museum-worthy portrait of Venice have won the cover of this issue of CITY if he were using a Leica instead of a paintbrush? Or would the judges have dismissed it as a trite, Vegas-ized version of a city long past its prime? Either way, with those two young Burmese monks as competition, I’m not sure he would have had much of a chance.

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CITY Issue 51

Contents Letter from CITY Our Friends Action Wanted City Moment The City Life Fast Food Fit Field Trip The Suite Life Paint the Town Red Fresh Tracks After the Sunset One City, Many Destinations The Winning Photographer The Entries By the Numbers The Finalists Expert Opinion Amateur Hour Meet the Finalists Nowhere Man Dune Raiders Just Go Where To Buy It Socials Icon

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.