ROME – street photography
Street photography is the pursuit of quirky scenes to capture as they unfold, unscripted. Shooting in the same place over and over helps identify the patterns, which only helps spotting what might make a significant image.
Where it doesn’t help, is coming up with ever-clever, creative titles for my posts…

The symbols for different currencies seem to spell “yes” in this wonderful street art poster entitled “Money is your God” by artist Hogre photographed at Rome’s Porta del Popolo.

Classic Roman scene: umbrella-wielding tourists with cameras by great monumental art, some random guy on his cellphone and three nuns in the background. The elephant, legend goes, was sculpted by Bernini to face away from something he was not too fond of.

Romans are so used to great weather that at the very first sight of drizzle, out come the umbrellas. Work on the pipes running underneath the pavement of Rome’s narrow alleys sometimes leaves barely enough room for a pedestrian to squeeze by.

What do you get in Rome when a rich guy in the city center buys a big, expensive car? You get an ancient stone doorway that mysteriously carves itself out into the shape of a Mercedes…

Rome is full of small tunnels, such as Vicolo Sinibaldi, leading from one street to another by passing underneath buildings.

One thing you’ll have a hard time finding in Rome is two streets meeting at right angles: every single cluster of buildings is a different size and shape. Which is why Romans don’t measure distances in “blocks” as they do in many other cities in the world.

Tourists taking in beautiful Piazza Navona. When caught shooting strangers, just grin like a fool and then grin some more.

This is a reproduction of the Befana, a generation or two ago, Italy’s traditional holiday-season gift-giver. She would come around by night in early January flying on a broom and wearing broken shoes to leave gifts in stockings for good children, and coal to bad ones. She is currently unemployed, all but replaced by Santa Claus.
Photo essay shot in the streets of Rome in November 2012.
Alessandro Ciapanna
20 Responses to “ROME – street photography”
Practicing my grin . . . ๐
That’s the spirit. Smile ’til it hurts. The wrinkles are well worth it… ๐
WONDERFUL, again. Esapecially the undercover friar and his brothers. ๐
Thank you, Bente. The guy on the right was saying something like: “Hey that guy with a camera’s got us in his sights…!” They seemed not to mind the attention, though.
Beautiful! I love those cobblestone streets.
I’m told you’d hate them if you wear high heels. I normally don’t, so i love them too ๐
Thanks, Karen.
The one on the left is presumably an undercover cap-uchin?
Haha! You won’t DRAG that one by the rope… ๐
Thanks, Andrew
Great insight of Rome and like your captions… ๐
Writing captions is the fun part: you don’t risk geting punched in the nose as you sometimes do when poking your camera into strangers’ faces…
Thanks, Lisa ๐
You’re doing fine with the captions, and the pictures speak volumes. It must take a lot of practice to get them looking so natural. I thought the elephant had a particularly disgusted look on its face.
On second (or millionth) look, you are so right: he is downright scowling…
Thanks!
I wish Befana was hired again :). Alessandro I am so grateful for this post ๐ It showed me the Rome that I had missed on my last visit…
You know, she doesn’t really count for much any longer. But Italians remain stubbornly faithful to old traditions. Plus, some kids actually get a second, smaller, round of gifts on the Befana day, in early January. According to Christian tradition, this is the day the three kings arrived bearing gifts to baby Jesus.
Thanks, Paula.
I loved the three friars especially! I came to you by way of Steve McCurryโs blog…so glad I found you…Rome is one of my favorite places in the world….spent an afternoon wandering everywhere and need to go back ๐ Just beautiful images ๐
Why, thank you very much. Do come back – Rome would love to have you. (But, please, budget a little more time than one afternoon only)… ๐
Grandes tomas de la vida diaria, la primera de los hermanos me ha gustado mucho ยฟporque el primero no irรญa vestido de monje?
Quizas quiere disimular su clericalidad. Pero, con esa barba y esa compania, no va a funcionar muy bien… ๐
Muchas gracias, querida Manoli.
Love this series. You have an excellent eye for creating imaginative images.
Thank you very much. Imaginative images – just love that phrase ๐