For some time, I have been working on a small project concerning Rome’s two rivers—the Tiber and the Aniene—which recently took concrete form in a workshop I am wrapping up with a local photography group where I both collaborate and learn. This photo was originally intended for that project, but due to certain editing choices, it will likely be left out.
I like the image nonetheless: we are on the Aniene River, in an area just outside the city where industrial sites—specifically a timber mill and a cement plant—occupy the banks of Rome’s secondary river. By day, the scene isn’t particularly remarkable, but the dawn light and the mist rising from the water lend a mysterious quality to a landscape where human intervention has drastically altered the original setting, forever scarring and transforming it.
As often happens, light allows us to view the ugliness of our world through different eyes; that, I believe, is the magic and the advantage of photography.
