This is a shot from my hotel room in Venice. We stayed at the Hotel Bauer along the grand canal. A fantastic hotel where I amazingly got to see the likes of Donald Sutherland and Andre 3000.
Anyway, while out walking around in the evening it became increasingly clear that a storm was coming our way. We headed back to the hotel and just made it in time. I set up my camera and tripod on our balcony and stood over my camera taking shots of this church, Santa Maria della Salute, with an umbrella protecting the lens from rain. I took at least 400 shots that night and got at least 20 strikes captured, this being the most dramatic.
Here is some interesting information on Santa Maria della Salute in the area of Venice called Dorsoduro:
Over the centuries, diseases have contributed mightily to great art and architecture.
The church of Santa Maria della Salute is a case in point. In October of 1630, after nearly a third of Venice's 150,000 citizens had been killed by plague, the Venetian Senate made an offer to God: Stop the plague, and we'll build a church to honor the Virgin Mary.
God came through, or maybe the onset of cooler weather reduced the population of plague-ridden fleas. Whatever the reason, the plague was stopped in its tracks. The Venetian authorities honored their promise by giving the Virgin a prime chunk of real estate near the tip of Dorsoduro, where the Grand Canal merged with St. Mark's Basin.
