I took these pictures in Venice, in exactly the same place, but the second one was taken in the last days, during the epidemic of Coronavirus.
The first one was shot in 2013, on the 7th September, and we can clearly see the monster big cruise ship going out of Venice, and the crowds of a normal September’s day in via Garibaldi, the largest street of the district of Castello.
A monster big cruise ship in Via Garibaldi, Castello
I took the second picture on the 15th March 2020, in the middle of the epidemic Covid-19.
We can clearly see from these pictures that - no matters what you think about the big cruise ships - we can say that the problem so far is solved itself.
Via Garibaldi now, in time of epidemic Covid-19
As a professional photographer, publishing in the newspapers, I am one of the very few persons allowed to be outside, instead of locked at home, and rarely I wander around Venice to document this particular moment. Controls are rightly very strict.
Now I have a lot of time to spend at home, so I also went through some old pictures, taken in Venice by the Magnum photographer Inge Morath in 1955 and I found this one of children coming back from the school.
Castello, Venice. Picture taken by Magnum photographer Inge Morath in 1955
Inge’s Morath’s picture was taken, by the way, a few meters from via Garibaldi, the same street of the picture where you can see the big cruise ship. Exactly one year ago, on the 20th March 2019, I took a picture at 2.40pm in the same place of Inge Mortath’s one.
The same street on Inge Morath’s picture, on the 20th March 2019
If you turn the corner and you wonder in the residential areas of Venice, it seems like there was the epidemic Covid-19 last years too, but it’s not such the case. The problem is that there are almost no more residents in Venice. A lot of Venetians have made tourism the monoculture of their activities and, not only in these times of epidemic, there are almost no venetians remained in the street.
Marc De Tollenaere
https://www.marcdetollenaere.com/