Like an addict craving for more, I came back to capture images of those mysterious masks again. As a result, here is the gallery of images from this wonderful and colorful event. I am not sure whether I would be able to do it again in the very near future although I would love to do this for the third or even the fourth time but there are so many other things to photograph and places to visit that I have never been to.

I contacted our friend, Silvano Candeo again. This time around, two fellow photographers from California, Bobby and Luz came with me. There are other Italian photographers, the group Il pokerd'assi (Alessia, Bianca, Marina and Monica) and Christian from France. Of course, Silvano, being a passionate photographer himself, was very active. On and off for four wonderful days, we captured images of people in masks together. I would like to thank Silvano and Anna for arranging and allowing me, respectively to capture wonderful images during a private session. The friendship from both is greatly appreciated.

There is a short description about carnival in general and mask carnival in Venice in the previous gallery here https://pbase.com/ageojo/venice_mask_carnival_2010

At sunrise or shortly before sunrise a group of dedicated masks gather near the water front at San Marco. The weather cooperated on Saturday. Yes, it was cold but both sunrise and sunset on the first day were spectacular. When more and more crowd started to assemble, a group of masks and photographers moved quietly to a different location further inside the "labyrinth" of Venice to get away from the crowd. The "program" was flexible and communicated right there and then on the spot. Other popular shooting locations that I visited included Arsenale, San Giorgio and Burano or just about anywhere else less crowded. For the first time, I captured some indoor shots of Anna at Palazzo Marin. The permission to do so was granted by l’Atelier delle Muse, thanks to Silvano that made the arrangement possible.

The masks love their pictures being taken and you can ask them to pose as you please. In return, they would like you to send their images to them. Most masks are well prepared; they give you cards that show them in their masks and costumes. However, I managed to miss some of them since it could be quite hectic. If you happen to know the masks that I didn't identify on the images below, or if I misidentified some masks, please let me know. I would be more than happy to send some of their images to them.

I kept in contact with quite a few masks and recognized them right away and they recognized me. Despite the language barrier, we somehow managed to communicate and it was really a wonderful feeling, similar to that of good friends that have not seen each other for a year.

Photography tidbits:
Since this is my second time around, I tried to capture different angles to create different perspective of images for the second gallery. I was using a Canon DSLR with 2 prime and a zoom lenses plus a Leica M9 with 3 lenses. The notion of using a short tele lens solely for portraits, although not completely abandoned, of course, but it was expanded with the use of wide angle lenses. I had to get fairly close to the models to get tight and frame filling shots. I used a Canon 35mm f/1.4L lens and Leica 28mm Summicron ASPH at wide open or close to wide open aperture quite a bit for that purpose.

Thank you for visiting this gallery. I hope you enjoy my second set of images of this wonderful, colorful, photogenic and yet mysterious world of masks. Please feel free to leave comments on the images themselves or on the gallery itself as you see fit. Your input is greatly appreciated.