What happens when the train is late, your digital camera dies, and Venice doesn’t go according to plan.
This was not the Venice session we planned.
Our train was late. By the time we arrived, we had way less time than we expected. We weren’t going to make it to Piazza San Marco or most of the places we’d talked about photographing.
And then my digital camera died before we even started. So, that was going well.
Thankfully, I had film.
I stopped thinking about everything we were supposed to get and we started walking.
We didn’t need the Venice everyone knows.
I grew up less than two hours from Venice, so I’ve been coming here since I was a kid. I know the San Marco version of Venice. The crowds, the pigeons, the gondolas, everyone trying to get the same photograph.
Me as a kid. Feeding the pigeons was pretty much the whole point of Piazza San Marco.
It’s beautiful. But it wasn’t what we had time for that day.
So we worked with the Venice that was right in front of us. Little streets. Bridges. Church doors. Corners I noticed while we walked. I’d stop them when I saw something. I’d give them direction, see how they naturally responded to each other, adjust, and then leave enough room for something else to happen.
The point wasn’t to make them look like a couple having a romantic session in Venice.
I wanted them to look like them.
About the film
I didn’t plan to photograph this entire session on film. I love film, but this happened because my main camera decided it was done participating. And I’m actually glad it did.
Film made me slow down. We had limited time, limited frames, no chance to check the back of the camera and make sure we’d “got it.”
I had to trust what I was seeing.
Some frames are grainy. Some aren’t technically perfect. I don’t really care.
They feel like that day.
Maybe that’s what I like about it.
We had less time than planned. We didn’t make it to the places we thought we would. My camera failed.
And we still made something that feels like them. That’s the part I keep coming back to.
You don’t need to turn your session, elopement, or wedding into a checklist of photographs you’re supposed to have.
Plans matter. Beautiful places matter. Good light definitely matters. But I don’t need everything to go perfectly to make something good with you.
I can work with what the day gives us.
Planning an elopement or couple session in Venice?
I’m Italian, I know this city beyond the obvious photographs, and I’m in Italy for part of every year.
Whether you’re planning a Venice elopement, celebrating an anniversary, or just want photographs of the two of you while you’re here, we don’t need to turn it into a production.
We’ll figure out where to start and leave some room for Venice to surprise us.
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