Update 2
Added *deviant-ARCADE links, a link to the Venice-inspired art of Amicizia Sowe (see features), and I completely redid my shoutboard.

I don’t intend to make this a long journal, because of trouble with my main computer I’m working from my laptop. This means that some of the stuff I work from for my journal isn’t there and I’m working on a difficult screen where it comes to colours.

Features: Venice and Venice
People who know me well, know I’m rather passionate about Venice (Venice Italy), and not just the town, but its surroundings too. There are tourists who believe they’re making a bold statement by saying that it’s overcrowded, a pile of depressing old stuff that’s not a shadow of its former self, and an urban dinosaur that deserves to die.
However, anyone who takes their time and goes beyond the San Marco highlights or knows to pick the right time of the day or the year, will discover it’s a great place for people instead of for cars. Our blissful petrol-oriented metropoles could learn one or two things from it. On top of that, it’s a place for painters, paint lovers and photographers. Its light is often unique and always different, many paintings are still in the place and the light they were painted for, and photographers will discover that the walls, the windows, the mirrors and many peoples’ faces already have their textures and patina - no Photoshop needed. The pictures below are just a chip of the block...

by My comment: There's beautiful echoing in the picture - the sweeping lines of the sandolo vs. the curves in the perspective, and also the green of the boat's floor and the water; and the yellow seats and the distant house, and these are nicely ordered over the picture with the reds of the other houses.
and by Wonderful colours. They can be like that, I tell you. The second painting was inspired by:
by Venice is best at night, and this picture shows it.
by This one got a DD and not for nothing.
by Canon 350D user. This shows some of the wonderful kinds of light you can have in Venice.
by Note the crowds and the tourist coaches... not. I’d settle for the palazzo on the right, if I could pay for maintenance...
by Venice is really about people.

To compare, and because I don’t want to get hit by a surfboard, here are some pictures from the other Venice (Venice CA):

by Holga picture, quite interesting.
by I really like this portrait, not something you’d expect to turn up on the first page of a random-ish search action
by Just in case anyone wonders why it’s called the way it’s called. Cut down a little bit on the palms and a lot on the hidden cars (I know you’re out there), and it could look like Venice - not the city itself but places in the Lagoon.
by People are what makes a place really interesting - in whichever Venice you are.
by This a Venice-Italy feel for me, nice work.
by And this is the surfboard, obviously.

UPDATE:
The pictures above came across my path in the past year while browsing and ended in my favorites. After I finished this journal it occurred to me that I could do for Venice Italy the same as for Venice CA: search. Well, there’s a lot of it. I’ve tried to avoid the obvious carnival masks and loving couples, and it’s just a taster.
I've also tried to add some non-photography. It became obvious to me why so many news articles are about photography and so few about other media - it looks like the bulk of DA is photography, with or without all the anime and manga. So, let's be nice to our traditional artists, our sculptors and dollmakers and artisans and all the others. Give them some love.

*Amicizia-Sowe has more Venice-inspired art in her journal of May 6: [link]


Lovable unlinkable links
The links are on my troublesome PC and would have to be recovered from DA html. I hope you will forgive me for having a life.
I promise they’ll return, and you can still find the latest batch in the previous edition of my journal. [link]

Tech talk and questions
I’m writing this journal in MacJournal, a note-taking/information organizing freefrom database, or rather the demo version of it. It’s not very expensive (www.marinersoftware.com). The alternative is that I’d ditch Firefox (which doesn’t support the Cyrillic alphabet either, baa) and switch to Opera, which has a neat and free inbuilt note-taking option in the sidebar - ideal for creating something like the DA journal because it’s right next to the webpage and yet independent, but it’s also very basic. Or I could use Google notes, which would mean I could share my notes over different machines, but my Wifi is terrible unstable, which makes online applications unusable.
I’ve always loved information organizers based on little notes, they fit the way that I’m working much better than an Indesign-wannabe wordprocessor. I really love to hear your opinions and suggestions on this!

Oh, and my message to anyone out there who is writing programs like these - wordprocessors or notes takers - for professional writers and journalists: they really need an on-the-fly wordcount on the statusbar, much more than the option to have twinkling stars behind the text, thank you very much.

Side account
I’ve opened a second account for my photography. It’s rather tame compared to my weird art and I want to keep things separate - at least for now - but if you’re on my friendslist and are still interested in nature and travel photography, drop me a note.

Photo on top
Buddha 2.0... the garden is doing well.

Inspiration poll
You can still participate, and you can just read or watch it of course... [link]