In every issue we intend to include a photographer's account of making an image. We will ask him or her why he/she made the choices he/she did—what alternatives were considered, and what constrained the range of choices. We'd like to include one or two other shots of the same scene, and learn why the featured image was preferred.

One can go through a lot of film (or memory cards) in Rome, for even with the crowds, it is generally easy to get an unobstructed shot of many of the monuments and ruins. The almost irresistible temptation, however, is to forget what one knows about composition—with the result that you wind up with a lot of snapshots of interesting objects, but few (if any) good photographic images. Unless you are disciplined enough to get up unusually early and, later, to skip the cocktail hour, the light on those ruins is rarely optimum.

I usually spend a lot of time walking around a subject before setting up my tripod, checking out several points of view. The light was going to last for a while, so I felt I had ample time. This is the third view I took; even when you can't see your results immediately, sometimes it takes a couple of exposures before you begin to know what you want to do. In this instance, I realized I wanted the bright three-columned Temple of Castor and Pollux in full view, but well separated from the arch and from the single standing column to its right. And I also wanted to capture the arch from a perspective just below the top panel—much as one might have viewed its inscription when walking down the Capitoline Hill. Although there are a few people in the scene, they are so small as to be unobtrusive. The immediate foreground was in shade, but there is nothing there of significance so that was not a problem.
     The subject, of course, is not the arch of Septimius Severus, but the Forum itself, featuring three significant ruins and a lot of the background context. In the first of these images, I reacted as though my subject was the arch (and its scaffold); it took some moving around, thinking about alternate perspectives and considerations before I understood what to do.
                                                                                                    —FLG

No. 2 June 2006

Until I was asked by the local constabulary to pack up my large view camera and leave, the Forum in Rome is a delight for anyone who combines an interest in architecture with a modicum of knowledge of ancient history. The architectural idiom is a familiar one, and the guidebooks let us associate names of emperors, institutions (Vestal Virgins) and mythological figures (Castor and Pollux) with specific ruins. There aren't many emperors worthy of much respect, but Septimius Severus (190-211) was an able warrior and administrator, and free of the corruption characteristic of most of the breed. His arch, erected after one of Rome's few victories over the Parthians in 204, is in a fine state of preservation.
     I am invariably delighted when I see a scaffolding erected around a ruin (as long as it leaves a major portion visible), for that combines the ancient and the very contemporary. I have little regard for photographers who try to make it appear that old structures are much as the Romans (or Washington's contemporaries, or Lincoln's) would have seen them. Let us picture these ancient survivors amid the detritus of our society. That's why my first exposure (below) included the scaffolding in spite of the fact that it was largely in shadow and the arch in bright sunlight.

I was shooting film, so had no chance to see my image, but when in Rome (or anywhere away from home), one ought to take several shots of any good subject. So I moved up a couple of steps, turned my camera to the right and made the image below. It is better, and I rather like the pines of Rome on the hillside in the background.