Our Mission? Photo Assault in Rome!

Kathi and I only had 2 days in Rome on our way to Naples and the Isle of Capri.  I was determined to make the most of it by staying at a hotel within walking distance of the Coliseum and Palantine Hill.   These were the two areas besides Pompeii and Capri that I really wanted to photograph.

On our day walk to the Coliseum I was disappointed, awed and appalled all at once.  I was disappointed by the ugly gray patina of the coliseum in daylight; I was awed at its size and the magnificent architecture; and I was appalled at the number of the tourists already there in the morning! There were six tour buses there and more arriving every five minutes! So, what did we do?  We played tourist!  We looked at everything around the coliseum and made plans to come back for a nighttime photo—assault on the old stone ring.

Walking the six blocks at 11:30 at night was a little scary carrying all of our photo gear; we were alone; there was nobody out there; there was no traffic and no noise!  At least when it started to rain, we had our umbrella handy!

All of our concerns melted away when we looked down the street and The Coliseum was aglow, internally lit by hundreds of incandescent lamps looking like a huge four layer wedding cake, spanning the end of the street in front of us!  It was truly stunning and the closer we got to it the more impressive and powerful was its affect on me.  I thought, “How am I going to create an image that does this massive structure justice?  It’s just too big!”  Then I saw the image in my head.  A vertical slice of the building showing some of the road, just narrow the vision a bit, tilt the camera so you could see the mass of the walls and the sparkle of the lights.  And there is “The” image!  What seemed impossible became an image that I’ll always cherish!

~Jerry