A Jewelry Bridge

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They have made precious bauble art here for centuries.
All along the bridge, on each side are some of Italy's finest jewelers.
Now here's the question...
If you stand here at sunrise...
And squint your eyes way way down...
Wouldn't you swear that the bridge itself looks
Like the stuff that's made
Inside?

I'm just sayin'....

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The Geek Stuff

Ponte Veccio: Florence, Italy
Canon 20D EOS 10-22 mm @ 11mm, f7.1, 1/125sec, ISO 200 – 9:12am
PS3, Topaz and AlienSkin SnapArt Oil, custom brushes.

Knurdle Of Locks

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As I ran through the sidewalk tunnel on the right in this image I noticed something odd. At first I was preoccupied in trying to get the shot of the bridge. But then, I walked back to the tunnel entrance to examine the handrails more closely. And as you can see in the picture above, there were glowing pods in the doorway. See them? Looking closer, here’s what I saw.

Odd? Bizarre?

“What the hell?” I muttered and a voice from behind me said, “You don’t know do you?”

She was smiling at me: A gorgeous blonde in a running suit.

“Um, I’ve got no idea.”

“There’s a legend. No one’s sure where or quite when it started,” she said pleasantly in a New Jersey twang.

“And it involves these locks?”

“Uh-huh,” she fingered the set, testing them, clinking them together. “There are those who believe that if you leave behind a lock that sometime in your life you will return to Florence to unfasten it.”

“There are so many who believe it?”

“More than you can imagine. I saw the police on Friday morning cutting these banisters free.”

“Wow, it’s Sunday morning you mean?”

“Yeah,” she jangled the one cluster and nodded to a larger bunch on the companion railing to her right.” These are from the rest of Friday and yesterday. They grow like barnacles, there are signs all over the city banning them… it drives the cops nuts,” she dropped the locks and started to jog through the tunnel.

“Thanks for the explanation. Um, what part of Jersey you from?”

“Jersey?” She laughed, her voice echoing in the tunnel, “Never been to the States. I’m a Swede.”

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Note to follow the Mano A Mano series


As many of you may recall I visited Italy during the first two weeks of October staying the first week in Rome and then for a week in Florence where I met up with Andreas Manessinger for a Mano-A-Mano photo-shoot at sunrise on October 7 starting at the famed Duomo and working our way toward this astonishing Ponte Vecchio bridge (yes I know that is redundant). You can begin this Italian adventure chronologically by clicking here and working your way quickly forward. Of course your thoughts and feelings mean a whole lot so feel free to wade in at any or every point.

Or if you prefer click on the appropriate keywords at the bottom of this page. Clicking on Mano-A-Mano will bring you to the images in the series I did with Andreas which I've so far posted. Enjoy....And For a review of my Florence images click here.

Florence 17 • Ponte Vecchio 3

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Photographers are separated from their subjects by a machine. It's the job of the photographer to overcome that separation. Not to just make the machine an extension of his or her body. No... no... it is not a prosthetic device when it is working best. Think about how musicians have the same challenge. Great musicians don't merely incorporate their instrument into their arms or fingers. Nope... They incorporate it into their feelings. Their ideas. Their minds. Which is exactly what I see those photographers I most admire accomplishing. Some call that voice. They speak uniquely through their machines. You are part of their mood.

I'm trying to do that. Long ago I mastered the machine as completely as any musician who can sight read. What I am now continually trying to do is beyond that. Sight reading is rote reading. Now... now... how to understand something I feel about say, the Ponte Vecchio in the sunrise, and then letting you know precisely that?

Isn't that so much easier said than done? Here's the question... Do I have to tell you what I felt about this place at that moment, or, when you look at these images... have I already told you?

Florence 16 • Ponte Vecchio 2

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If you read yesterday's post you knew I faced a choice.

I decided to dart straight ahead through the pedestrian tunnel, almost running I broke through the other end... and whipped about to see this: The ancient Ponte Vecchio in the full explosion of the first morning sun.

CLICK!

Florence 15 • Ponte Vecchio 1

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The Medici family, the richest people on earth at the time were the massive drivers behind Rennaisance Florence. Here I finally approach the wonderful Ponte Vecchio, the old bridge. Turn right at this corner and you cross that span. Go through the walkway-tunnel and your arrive at the Uffizi Gallery. As I've mentioned before, it's now home to one of the world's greatest collections of art. But it was originally one of two the most massive Medicci palaces. The other, the Pitti Palace was on the other side of the Arno River and the Ponte Vecchio was built to join the two.

I arrived at this corner early on October 7 as the sun peeked over a crack of the Uffizi you can see on the left. This was the morning when Andreas Manessinger and I were into our Mano-A-Mano shoot and here I had to make a decision. Go right and onto the Ponte Vecchio, go through the tunnel in front of us here and go up river to capture the bridge looking east with the sun at my back, or go backward and capture the grand structure shadowed in the rising sun. Since I arrived the evening before, I'd never been in this place before and the sun was rising rapidly. What to do? Could I possibly match Andreas's expertise and experience with this site? Hmmm: At least I'd arrived first, he was nowhere to be seen.....

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As many of you may recall I visited Italy during the first two weeks of October staying the first week in Rome and then for a week in Florence where I met up with Andreas Manessinger for a Mano-A-Mano photoshoot at sunrise on October 7 starting at the famed Duomo and working our way toward the astonishing Ponte Vecchio bridge (yes I know that is redundant). You can begin this Italian adventure chronologically by clicking here and working your way quickly forward. Of course your thoughts and feelings mean a whole lot so feel free to wade in at any or every point.

Or if you prefer click on the appropriate keywords below. Clicking on Mano-A-Mano will bring you to my images from the series I did with Andreas which I've so far posted. Enjoy....