Thematic Photographic - Grey

Carmi at the blog Written, Inc. posts a weekly photo challenge. This week, the theme is "GREY."

As Carmi puts it, grey is more like the absence of color. "Or," as he says, "an in-between kind of color, as grey is one of those colors that always seems to be wavering between one optical state and another."

A cherub on the facade of the Chiesa San Stae in San Polo

 Here are a handful of Venetian Greys.

You think of Venice as a rosy city, but as a city made of ancient stone, there is a grey tone beneath the rosy plaster. Its baroque buildings are often faced with elaborate grey stone carvings, like the Chiesa di S. Eustachio, or in Venetian dialect, San Stae. Centuries of rain, dust, and soot have streaked and mottled the stone a darker grey, making it look as though the cherub's cheeks are damp with blackened tears.

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These traces of pollution mark even newer structures - newness is relative, however. This stone capital crowns a column at the 19th century Pescheria, or covered fish market. The capitals are carved with fishy themes, like this gape-mouthed fish, twisting its scaley sides among the broad leaves of water lilies.

In narrow calles and passages, shrines of the Virgin appear in corners and nooks, put there to ward off bandits and thieves.

Some passages feature other, more modern greys - like this row of brushed-steel pay phones, with their bright orange-red hardware.

Silver is simply grey with gleam, and here silvery sardines glimmer in the Pescheria.

Grey appears on the plate, too - the dark charcoal of squid-ink gnocchi. Smile in the mirror - your teeth are grey, too!

This enscribed drawing of a cow appears on the polished marble storefront of a butcher's shop near the Mercado Rialto.

One of the many resident cats of Venice gives us a grey that's softer and warmer than stone.