NEW PICTURES FROM ROME!!!

What are you looking at? .... Who is it that you are looking at? …Why are they on the ground? … Could it be a drunk?...... Or a beggar?.... Do you care? … If you say yes, then why? … What is your first reaction when you see someone on the street? … Do you think negative thoughts immediately such as, “oh they are probably just going to spend it on drugs or alcohol…or they might actually just be faking it and really live in a house, but just dress up as a beggar for an occupation…”? … This woman has a cane…you think she just bought that to help get more sympathy donations? … Often we are told not to give people money on the street… why? …Because we know that often times the money is misused. …Is it always misused? What is your role?

This one gives you a little clearer picture of this woman, but you couldn’t pick her out in a crowd if you had to… Does it matter that you can’t see her face? Do you care that you don’t know her or her story? I wonder what her life is like or how she got to this point…

…I passed this man on the way to the market where I bought myself a slice of pizza for lunch. I don’t like taking pictures of beggars, but I always do…I am always discreet and keep the camera at my hip and try not to make a scene…. Why do I take the pictures? Is it because I care about the person? Is it a spectacle? Are pictures of beggars……interesting? Do they…make for a good picture?...

For one of the days we ate lunch on the Spanish steps and then I walked around for about an hour just taking pictures of people. This is a high fashion district with Dior, Gucci, Zara, Giorgio Armani, Cavalli, Prada, Valentino, Versace, Luis Vuitton and many other stores on the cutting edge of fashion. This man was carrying his Dolce & Gabbana bag and the woman with him was carrying her recent purchase. What do they do when they walk by a beggar? What does the beggar think when he sees them walking by?

What about him? He paid a good chunk of Euros for what is in that little white bag he got from Chanel. What is his life like? Do you care?

Right as we were coming out of the church of San Augostino I saw this guy standing on the steps of the church. We had just seen Caravaggio’s Madonna di Loreto inside the lavishly decorated church. One of the things that struck me about this painting was that Caravaggio painted a man with dirty feet kneeling in front of Mary holding baby Jesus. It was a controversial painting to have the dirty feet in the same frame as Jesus and Mary mixing the Sacred with the Secular. Caravaggio frequently used whores and beggars in the streets for his models even when painting very Holy and Sacred scenes for churches. The people from the street that saw his paintings connected with them and deeply moved the community of the day and judging by my one comment in the previous blog about Rome….It continues to move people today like it almost brought me to tears when I saw a Caravaggio……

So how does that relate to this guy I saw on the way out of church? This man was clearly drunk…holding a cigarette and a bottle of Carona… He wasn’t begging… I walked right by him and snapped a few pics on my way. Did he need me to say something to him? Give him some money? Or would he just get drunk with the money I might have given to him? I know the arguments for buying food or clothing items to actually give these “unlovables” … “untouchables” … “disgraces to society” … What is your role? Should we be saying…. “Oh, it is the churches role to provide for the poor.... Welfare is wrong. It is the churches job….Is the church fulfilling it’s role? ? ……..OR WHAT AM I DOING????? WHAT ARE YOU DOING???? Do you read this and think…. “Oh, that’s sad.” “Wow, he’s totally right………you know what honey, I’m feeling a Starbucks….”

In drawing class we learned about looking at something. Not just simply looking at it and moving on, but truly asking ourselves how long can you “look” at the subject. How long do we truly “look” at something? ….Why do we avoid eye contact with the outcasts of society? Why do we look away? …

Purple is in in Italy. The men love it. Young and old will get decked out in purple, pink, red, or any combination of the above and it is perfectly “ok” here.

So, since I roped you into looking at this post by saying I had pictures of Rome I thought I would give you the usual Rome pictures as well…

The Coliseum at night. Had fun taking some long exposure shots.

Leaving St. Peter’s Basilica as the sun was setting.

The Pantheon.

A sweet sky space in front of the church of St. Ignazius.

Right as the sun was setting I took this long exposure shot at Trevi fountain and you can see the little sliver of moon in the upper left.

Yeah, take a second look at this picture… Yep, your eyes are not playing tricks on you…that is definitely a priest with a baseball cap on carrying a pair of rollerblades up the Spanish steps. :) I was sitting eating lunch at the bottom of the Spanish steps when this dude walked by and I threw my sandwich down, grabbed my camera, and literally ran up the Spanish steps to get in front of this priest and snap a few pictures of this dichotomy.

Another beggar on the street. Or is it?

Does he look familiar? I didn’t think so when I took the picture.

I simply walked by an had the camera hanging by my side and snapped this as I was walking away from the man. Only later after I was going through the pictures did I see that the man was looking at my face when I took the picture without him knowing. It was only today after going through my pictures for probably the third time from Rome that I realized that this man was the same man I had taken pictures of two days prior in a different location in Rome. I didn’t realized it was the same guy in person or even after flipping through my pictures a few times.

What does that mean to me? I didn’t even care enough to remember his face… Do you? So did you remember him from above? It doesn’t matter whether or not you remembered…but it does matter whether you thought about the poor and downtrodden when you read this post. What will YOU do? …click out of this page and check your facebook? Maybe update your twitter? …. OR?