Burano, Italy

Burano has to be one of my favorite places to photograph. It's an island about a 45 minute slow boat ride from Venice, not visited as frequently as its more well-known sister, Murano. I can speculate that Murano is much closer, and is famous for its glass (rather than lace on Burano). In any event, Murano looks like Hoboken compared to Burano, where all the houses are painted in a riot of colors, the canals are narrower, and the city is laid out willy-nilly. Hard to get lost because its a tiny place, circumnavigable in about a half hour on foot. This was my fourth time there, and there is definitely a sense of place and time in the photograph. This was in 2006, and a bunch of friends and family were on a cruise through the Mediterranean with Venice the third stop after Rome and Dubrovnik. The night before we arrived here, hundreds of passengers stayed up late watching the World Cup championship game on the huge screen on the pool deck.   I'm a baseball guy so I went to bed early. Italy won, of course, and we were greeted with Italian flags everywhere we went the two days we spent in Venice and environs. I'm a total sucker for laundry shots and got a bonus with the flag mixed in with the wash. I was using the Nikon D50 in '06. I can't remember the lens, probably an 18-200 all-purpose. I should mention I'm a huge fan of Photoshop plug-ins, especially the great suite of filters from Nik and Topaz. I use them unashamedly, despite protests from my friends and family that they look too "baked." The cat's meow plug-in for me of late is Nik Viveza, especially the Structure filter, which in this photograph I turned down to get a smoother effect.