Michael Wilkins
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Sunrise photograph of Santa Maria della Salute across the Grand Canal in Venice, its domes silhouetted against a burning orange sky with moored gondolas and still water in the foreground.

Salute

Venice, Italy · September 2021

1D X Mark II, 95 millimetres, f 22, 2.9 seconds, ISO 100

Built as a thank-you for the end of a plague.

The Salute at first light from across the Grand Canal, with the water still flat enough to hold the whole reflection. The church was built as a votive offering after the plague of 1630 killed a third of the city — an enormous piece of baroque engineering put up as a thank-you. Shot early enough that the canal traffic had not started and the surface was still intact.