It is not uncommon to come across photographs of the magical Italian city of Venice pop-up on my Instagram feed. It is an architectural gem. Canals and bridges criss-cross the city, that is made even more magical by the interplay of light and shadows. I quite enjoy the work of Italian-Austrian photographer, Ando Fuchs. There is a group of talented photographers who use long-exposure techniques to bring the city of Venice to life.

But for me, Venice has been more than a place for making photographs. I don’t know when, or how, I fell in love with the city. I suspect, it had something to do with mystery writer Donna Leon’s beautifully written books. She talked about the city with such emotion, and in such vivid details, that at times I felt, I lived in the city of 60,000 residents. I have read her twenty-off books many times, and perhaps that’s why I knew the city well, even before I got on the plane.

I was reading Leon’s “My Venice: And Other Essays” where she writes about the idea of an Italian woman.

“Whatever the cause, she will find herself enveloped in the warmth that comes of being with a person who likes her, who finds the simple gift of her company a source of pleasure, and who makes no attempt to disguise that pleasure.”

I think those words were meant to describe the city of Venice.

I visited Venice last year and made many photos, and only recently started to sift through them. I was thinking about how to distinguish my visit to Venice visually — and in the end, I have decided on two collections. I share the first one today — it is called Venice @ Night. I used deep blacks to give the city a more brooding quality, and in some photos, I left some color for evoking a certain feeling.

Whether it was jet-lag or my general tendency to not being able to sleep, I often ended up walking the empty streets of Venice late at night. The January cold, with a hint of menace, and the yellow light from the street lamps, with a touch of mist somewhere in the background, made the visit to Venice memorable for me. Here is a short selection of Venice slumbering in the dark, only mystery author Leon’s protagonist, Commisario Guido Brunetti knows.

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