The People

Tempus Captum – captured Time.

A Project of Photographic Analysis and Exploration held in the Archaeological Park of the Colosseum.

The People

By Davide Di Pietro

For centuries, the places that now form part of the Colosseum Archaeological Park have been constantly traversed and visited by an incredible number of people. Thousands and thousands of gazes, footsteps, and emotions have settled upon the stones of each individual place. And in some mysterious way, a trace of their passage has remained imprinted within these walls.

In this project, the author seeks to bring to light the souls of what we can consider a true and proper People, who have daily crossed the ruins using a particular photographic technique, playing with light and exposure times to achieve an almost dreamlike effect in every shot, where the imprint of an imaginary passage becomes reality. The shots draw on the contingency of the present and provide a moving snapshot of the current moment.

Each individual shot has subsequently been developed in digital black and white to eliminate any form of personality and make the human trail a unique perception.

The work, purely experimental and born almost as a game, has subsequently evolved into a concrete materialization of a fleeting idea. And upon seeing it completed, a beautiful quote by Diane Arbus comes to mind: “I truly believe there are things that nobody would see unless I photographed them.”