Picture of the Day: "Frozen in Time"

Picture of the Day: Fontana di Trevi

Lonely Streets

The city was eerily quiet as I wound my way through the labyrinthine streets of Rome. Normally filled with sirens, music, voices, and shuffling feet, there was only the sound of the metal buckle of my camera case clinking in time with my step. It was a cool morning, and every now and then a slight draft of wind greeted the back of my neck with an icy kiss.

I walked, hands buried in the front pockets of my jeans, looking down at the undulating cobblestones ahead of me. They reminded me of water, swirling and flowing with the current; swelling and then breaking against the shore.

I passed a street on my right. There was an old man hobbling across it with a plastic bag in each hand. My eyes followed him until he disappeared from view behind a building. It was almost strange seeing someone else inhabiting the same streets. I felt like a survivor of a terrible apocalypse, having just seen another person for the first time in many years. The only other evidence of life came in the form of periodic booths throughout the city in which Carabinieri guards are stationed 24/7.

It was 7:00am and, in the States, any city in the country would be busy with commuters hurrying to work, but in Rome people approach the necessities of life in a rather lax manner. I had stayed up through the night, working on a variety of chores and trying to tackle all of the tasks I had failed to accomplish over my spring break. There was no urgency in the matter, but I had decided at some point in the wee hours of the morning that I was going to stay awake to photograph the Trevi fountain and Spanish Steps at dawn. That was exactly where I found myself headed.

I crossed Via dell Corso, normally one of the busiest streets in Rome, and saw a single car in the distance heading in my direction from Piazza del Popolo. Everything looked so much different at this time of the day. Despite the fact that there was plenty of daylight, I barely knew where I was! I kept walking, keeping track of my location via the image of a 19^th century map I had burned into my mind before leaving. Another strange thing about Rome is that even maps that are 200 years old are still, for the most part, accurate. The timelessness of the Eternal city is a difficult concept to wrap one’s head around.

Before I knew it, I could hear the dull roar of water. I let myself flow with the current, following the sound until it spilled out into the piazza. To my left, a skinny policeman was shivering violently as he paced back and forth. To my right, a middle aged couple stood, frozen in an embrace as they watched the endless cycle of water fall into the fountain. I put down my camera bag and unbuckled it, removed the UWRC’s Canon EOS 10D and affixed a 300mm medium/long range lens.

As I took my detail shots, memories from the previous week came back to me. I had been here before with James and several others and had taken some of the exact same pictures, but it had been at night. The piazza couldn’t have felt more different, but the tunnel vision of my camera transported me back in time.

It was a strange feeling knowing that the people I had been spending the vast majority of my time with over the past week would likely never see me again (and vice versa). Less than a day ago, I was leading them around Rome, talking and joking without any thought of the future. That was pretty much how I spent my spring break, and now it was over. I guess it hadn’t really sunk in. This wasn’t the first time I had ever said goodbye to someone or something, but it was different this time. Most of the people in my program left for spring break, so I had been living alone for the most part. I spent my days with James and the Newman center group and then went home to sleep, wake up, and repeat the cycle.

Usually the one who is leaving is the one saying goodbye to everyone else, but this time the roles were reversed. Everyone said goodbye to me and then got on a plane to go back home. It felt as if everyone had moved out of my home town at the same time and took their houses, cars, neighbors, and relatives with them.

I felt a chill, and reality began to sink back in. I wondered how long the policeman had been standing out in the cold. I had been there for maybe twenty minutes and was already starting to feel the elements penetrate my layers of clothing. I switched lenses, packed the larger one away, finished up my photo shoot, and packed the rest of my things.

Time to move on, I thought to myself.

Picture of the Day: Trajan's Column