Images of Venice is the marvelous creation of Ian Coulling, whose biographical statement is here; to summarize, he is a photographer from London with a decades-deep fine art portfolio and some award recognition, now retired from a career with the National Health Service where he was a specialist in “diagnostic pathology (which) involved the visual analysis of tissue and cell samples by microscopy, using a wide variety of preparatory and staining techniques.” In addition to the images promised in the name, his website features a voluminous blog with all sorts of informative articles on Venetian history, art, geography, culture—you’ll even find out how to become a gondolier. My introduction to the site came when I was searching for images of Venice flooded to use in a new on-line installment of The Last Man, and landed on the excellent blog post about the topic.

But the star attraction here is the captivating photography, pages and pages of images to get lost among for hours—treat yourself to more than one long browsing session. Under Ian Coulling’s lab-sharpened gaze, with its almost otherworldly alertness to pattern and detail, Venice becomes like a beetle carapace or butterfly wing seen under super-high magnification (and often similarly verging on the psychedelic)—the city as wonder of nature.

A newer and very fascinating effort at Images of Venice involves the painstaking creation of composite images, such as the one at top of page. I reproduce this and the rest with Mr Coulling’s kind permission. The immediate affinity I felt between his work and the Venetian scenes of The Last Man prompted me to write and ask whether I could include two of his images in that recent installment. I’m happy to add that another one might be appearing as the cover of the book that will be resulting from The Last Man project later this year. . .stay tuned! And thank you, Ian Coulling, for bringing such a wealth of beauty and knowledge on-line and to the world.