Short Story 1: Election Day

13 and 14th April: election day in Italy. In Roma the turnout is less than national average, but still high, 73%. Maybe this is because election in Roma are hard work: on top of Senate and Camera (the lower house), the Romani have to vote for the provincial and town elections. Poll stations are hosted in schools This set of pictures capture some of the activity around the schools of Municipio XVII (the area of Roma north of St Peter).

The slideshows contains my first broad selection of pictures from election day.

Some additional notes to this essay:

1) My original plan was to take a picture of Roberto Tavani (the candidate I followed during his campaign) as he voted, but I could not get the necessary authorization which is only given to the press. So the story of the candidate lack this important moment. On top of this, it was not possible to engage much with Roberto on the day as he was working as a polling officer, and therefore on duty.

2) Even if I had the authorization to take the pic, I still would have had to persuade Roberto to vote late in the day (which is against his usual electoral routine!). I had to vote in Torino and then get back to Roma by the afternoon.

3) It is not possible to get pictures of election officers and voters in action: taking pics of voting boots is forbidden. Basically one can only take pics of what happens in school corridors, not in the classrooms where the voting happens. Taking pictures of voting booths (or simply carrying in the voting boot a mobile phone with a camera) is a crime sanctioned with 300 to 1000 Euro. One could even be arrested, from 3 to 6 months. Not worth risking!! The reason for this is to limit vote selling.

4) I had hoped to take more pictures of people giving a final look at the electoral posters, with symbols and names of candidates (which are a bit of a rip off by the way as in Italy we now have no way to chose the candidates we vote, as we used to). In Torino these posters are put outside the schools, so it is really easy to take pics from the streets. In Roma, however, posters are put inside the school (bad surprise!), so it is more challenging to intrude the space and take pictures of them.

5) I tried my luck anyway and asked to police officers guarding the voting stations if I could take some pictures. Some of them were kind and let me do it, and I was quite quick and covert in doing it. Despite this I had to face a couple of voters who did not want me to take pics of the corridors., even if I always tried not to single out individuals. The police officers were kind enough to take my side . After that they commented, sadly, that it was as if people were ashamed to vote… The plus point of this discussion is that some other people who overheard the conversation said that would not oppose a pic of them and let me take it.

6) It was very difficult to give a sense of a story, this essay is more of a setting… The story of voting day I had in mind would culminate in the street vigil/celebrations for the results. But it was soon quite clear that the left - who would usually meet at Piazza del Popolo - was going to be badly defeated and no one showed up. there. The people from the right really did not have a celebration spot to visit. I should have taken a pic of a tv set instead!

Borders (toying with the idea)

I was walking around the Quirinale (the presidential palace hill), coming home from a boring debate on photography in Italy. I expected some interesting insights but most of the participants were frustrated museum directors. Empty streets, no one around. Suddenly I heard the typical sound of a car hitting a road paved with “sanpietrini”.

Sanpietrini (the name cames from “St. Peter”, where they were first used) are the square stones used to pave roads in Italy. The nightmare of cyclists as they make the ride really bumpy. When you are on a car (or near one, in my case) which pass from the smooth tarmac to the sanpietrini, the tyres make a characteristic noise. I associate it to visiting my relatives in their village: it was not when I saw the street or the house that I knew I was arrived but only when I felt the sanpietrini (who often would wake me up). A sentimental detour, but just to point out that the border between tarmac and sanpietrini is a meaningful one for me.

So I started to wonder where are, in Roma, the borders between roads paved with sanpietrini and tarmac. The spot where I had the idea really looked like a border: a small police post guarding the presidential palace was perfectly lined up with it. In the slideshow below you can find other examples of such borders, captured on my walk back home. I tried to take pictures of people crossing them (in the roads around the Quirinale I managed to get some martial pictures of military “crossing borders”) looking at maps on them (this faulty lines seems to confuse lost tourists), or simply hanging around. Sometimes these borders would divide a road by the length, and people would do different things on different surfaces (e.g. walking or reading books). If I was serious about it I should map where the sanpietrini are, and start probably with the original sanpietrini around St Peter. Anyway, for now I was only toying with the idea.

I also found interesting the borders established by the “madonnari” as they do their street painting. I spent some time looking at one of these artist to check if people were respecting or not the border he established by a crowded corner. Mixed results. Other madonnari chose not to establish borders, and trusted people to respect their art.

Last but not list, this bridges between a borders and faith project (in restrospect I should have pushed for faith.. Roma would have been the perfect spot!)

Where are we heading to?

Different people have different ideas...

Walking.. walking... and Martin Parr at the end of it

Today I followed again Roberto and Lorenza in their walking campaign. I must confess that I am getting quite curious about the results. Will so much walk and one-to-one contact pay? Or is the winning strategy about big posters and leaflets on windscreens?

Roberto is a bit of an outsider, he does not like to talk much about political strategies and manoeuvring of the party. He is coming out as a person really believing in the "politics of the water fountain" (as his idol, Walter Veltroni, the leader of the new democratic party defines it): politics focusing on the contact with the citizens, caring about their needs, looking at the details.
So he is walking around, talking to all the people he can meet, getting their feedbacks and their complaints. And after hearing so many people I am getting an image of this part of Roma as a big village rather than the town I used to know. And definitely there are some funny characters around.

The expectation for today was a visit of the candidate mayor (Francesco Rutelli, a very famous and popular politician) to the food markets of municipio XVII. He cancelled last minute, so instead of an active morning of shooting crowds and markets we went to visit attractions such as dog gardens and streets where Roberto organized a very popular tree pruning to keep away the birds (and I realize now that I lack photographic evidence of such pruning). I am running a bit out of ideas in these walks, I am not fully sure of how I will put together the story… but I suppose that boredom and routine are useful to force me to try and see different aspects of the same type of interaction (which I am constrained to shoot from some distance, because I really do not want to disturb much the conversation). One challenge is to find meaningful details. And I still feel I have no good shots capturing the environment. But this is probably also because it is hard to find out a way to capture in a meaningful ways streets where I pass everyday: I probably need some distance. Maybe I should do the selection of images when I will be in Torino next week to cast my vote.

Anyway, in the meantime I have done a few pictures about electoral advertisment by other candidates.



After walking and cycling all day I finally sat on at a talk by Martin Parr. He was supposed to talk about photobooks, but he never was told so by the organizers - as it transpired in an embarrassed introduction! - and ended up talking about his books. He was invited as president of the jury the first photobook prize of Roma, won by Davide Monteleone with his book “Dusha - Anima Russa"

Like Obama... door to door...

Yesterday I followed Roberto and Lorenza (his assistant) in their door to door walks around Municipio XVII. Obama style, they laughed. They visited the shops where they would know the shopkeepers, they stopped by passers... "Are you a resident of Municipio XVII? In this case I would like to leave you a leaflet and introduce myself...". If a door was open they would put a few leaflets in the mailboxes, but not many: leaflets are expensive, Roberto is running is campaign on a shoestring... and as a former councillor working on environment he feels very guilty to waste paper and to add to the electoral waste in the streets...

From You Tube

Opening of an art exibition

Tonight I took pictures of Roberto as he participated to the opening of an art gallery exhibition: contemporary art stuff of the dubious sort (one artist exhibited all the disposable contact lenses he wore in the past months with some intricate explanation about the art of seeing).

Roberto was there to chat up with people, with no formal role… trying to strike casual conversation with acquaintances and make new connections… so I did not want to make my presence too conspicuous, stress him out or bother the people he was engaging with. Luckily were other people with a camera, so no one really took much notice of me. I had to shoot at 1600 ISO - there was really no light and flash was not an option. So I knew that pics would not be great and I should however try to capture some interesting moments. The place was packed with people and it was difficult to find the right angle and the distance to could give a sense of “many people around and interacting” but at the same time without cluttering too much the image and making Roberto stand out.

I like the idea of the picture above, but I wish I could be a bit closer and that the pic could be a little bit sharper: Roberto is looking around, a bit lost for someone to chat to. The one below is also funny. He stroke conversation with an old lady on a fancy armchair, kneeling in front of her as if he was courting her… and then he gave her his card as if it was an engagement ring… Another lady joined them and they started chatting, oblivious of the crowd…