Venice during Lockdown, Spring 2020 – a photographic record/author interview

5th February 2021

Venice Deserted by Danielle and Luc Carton – a photographic record of Venice during Lockdown, Spring 2020.

This is compilation of photos taken in Venice in the early days of lockdown in 2020. Spring is certainly in the air and the blossom is out, the skies are blue and there isn’t a single tourist to be seen in any photo. It is the Venice we know and love and yet it is quite unsettling – discombobulating even – to see such an array of phots and not a single tourist or grande nave or open souvenir shop – all the perhaps more negative things we have come to associate with the Lagoon City.

The couple chose several areas on which to focus – San Marco, Canale Grande, Dorsodureo, San Polo/Santa Croce, Cannaregio and Castello. This is Venice suspended in time, caught without human life, yet still majestic and familiar. In Fondamenta de la Dogana a la Salute and the Grand Canal, they capture serried ranks of gondolas, you can sense them gently bobbing, there are no motor launches or ferries to stir up the waters. The Rio de San Giovanni Laterano depicts the canal waters as still as glass, the chairs are stacked high in front of Caffè Florian on the Procuratie Nuove in San Marco. Will a café which has been in existence since 1720 manage to survive the onslaught of Covid 19?

© Carton : sleeping gondolas on the Grand Canal

There is no significant text to go with the photos, they speak for themselves and by the end of the volume I had so many questions for the authors, which I pose to them below. Over to Danielle and Luc Carton.

Tina for the TripFiction Team

TF: Venice Deserted is a collection of wonderful photos taken in and around Venice in the Spring of 2020 during Coronavirus Lockdown. What drew you to this project and how did you go about getting permission to be out and about when everyone else was staying indoors?

We have been taking pictures of Venice every day for more than twelve years, being able to photograph it at that time was the realm of dreams.

It was an unknown Venice that then offered itself to us, a Venice we could not have imagined ourselves, such beauty thus revealed had to be immortalised, we had to carry out this project as a unique testimony, a work of memory.

During the lockdown, we could go out for reasons called necessity to do our shopping or for professional or health reasons.

So we took advantage of this opportunity to take pictures by going to our dentist, to the oculist, to buy computer equipment or even books when the bookstores were able to open again.

We were able to travel to almost every place in Venice without difficulty.

© Carton : Carmini Canal

TF: You have focussed on specific areas of the city. How did you plan your time and the shoots – all the photos have beautiful, different blue skies but I imagine it took quite some planning?

We photographed almost all of Venice and offered nearly 1000 photos to our publisher, in which he himself chose the book in certain places he liked most.

These photos were taken over more than two months.

Our goal was not to show something tragic about the lockdown, but instead to take advantage of this opportunity to show all the splendour of Venice.

So we decided to photograph it only on sunny days to give colour and warmth to our testimony.

TF: Looking through the collection I am struck how I thought I ‘knew’ Venice but seeing it without people left me feeling strangely unsettled. What was it like for you being in the city with no-one around? And what emotions did you go through being the only people out and about in a city known for people and life, and, well, primarily tourism?

For us who live here all year round, things are not so cut and dried.

There are always moments of calm and less crowded places where we only meet the Venetians, far from the crowd.

On the other hand, meeting at noon in St. Mark’s Square being totally alone was one of the most moving moments of this period. A particularly impressive moment, no one, barely a few pigeons and total silence.

At that time, the bell tower of St. Mark sounded the hour of noon and the sound of its bell was a form of liberation from the oppression created by this void and silence. There was something alive, moving!

TF: You have chosen not to add any text to the photos, I suspect the photos speak for themselves. Was that your intention?

Yes, of course, we wanted to let the reader soak up the beauty and atmosphere of each photo without distraction.

TF: You moved to Venice in 2007. What drew you to the city at that point?

We knew and went regularly to Venice for years and during our last stay, which was supposed to last a week, we stayed for a month, no way to leave.

Nine months later, we settled in Venice.

When the Venetians ask us how we could abandon Paris for Venice, we tend to answer that we did not choose to live in Venice, it was Venice that chose us!

TF: What is it in particular that makes Venice now feel like home?

It’s indescribable. It’s something that you feel, that doesn’t make sense. It’s as if we were born here.

We couldn’t live in another city any more.

TF: Do you have more upcoming photographic projects?

All this will depend on our publisher! We would like to make a photo book of Venice by night, a mysterious Venice but also very beautiful, probably more intimate.

TF: How do you see the future of Venice? Is it something that preys on your mind a great deal given all the problems it faces?

Crises are terrible moments on a human level. Venice had, in just a few months, faced a devastating Acqua Alta, followed by the lockdown.

The coming months will certainly be very difficult, but after what we have experienced, it has also allowed us to step back on what should be valued or modified in Venice.

Venetians are hardworking, brave and inventive people: with ideas and work, everything is possible!

Thank you so much to Luc and Danielle for wonderful answers!

Do connect with them via their website and follow them on Twitter and Facebook 

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