People

Working in Venice

While the hordes of tourists are still sleeping, a businessman makes a pre-dawn commute over the Rialto bridge in Venice.

A Streetlight Named Dependence

Smartphones have brought incredible capabilities to our fingertips, but they have also created an unhealthy dependency that leaves many people glued to their screens, even when walking through one of Italy's most iconic cities.

Jeffy

Jeff Snyder (a.k.a. ChossThumper) is a gregarious and lighthearted character. Amid a casual conversation while racking up, I stole this portrait, which highlights how single images taken out of context can either be illuminating or misleading.

Invisible Venice - Vaporetto

Gondolas are iconic of Venice, Italy, but the Vaporetto (water bus) is truly fundamental to the success and daily life of the city. For those not willing to shell out $80+ for a half hour gondola tour, the Vaporetto is a great way to tour the city. This image also highlights the divide between tourists and the workers and residents of the city. As a visitor, you get a mere glimpse or reflection into the daily lives of citizens and their true experience lacks as much clarity as the fuzzy island on the horizon

Knicknacks Make the World Go Round

The economy of modern tourism is largely based on two principles: foot traffic and knicknacks. Businesses that offer goods and services that are uninteresting or unnecessary to local customers (i.e., knicknacks or souvenirs) require a constant stream of non-local visitors to be economically viable. That dependence on non-local volume tourism poses one of the largest challenges to building a sustainable tourism model.

Salad Chucking

A Venitian tosses a box of vegetables onto a boat during early morning deliveries. Due to the lack of roads within the city, deliveries to the countless businesses are brought in by boat before being handed off to hundreds of "corrieres" (delivery men) who hand deliver goods.

Invisible Venice - Community

Thousands of tourists flood the streets of Venice each day. Visitors wander to and fro, take pictures of every inch of the city, eat some gelatto, buy a few souvenirs, then leave. Interactions between visitors is ephemeral and short, but the relationships Venitians have with each other is evident and can often be seen when locals like this interact. The city is made up of many walls and narrow corridors that allow visitors to catch glimpses of daily life for the community that supports the iconic city.