@Rome Maker Faire – 6. A Statue(?)

I saw her elevated on that concrete block — standing still, upright, focused — and couldn’t not take the photo. For a moment she looked monumental, absurdly dignified, like a civic sculpture in summer sandals. Phone raised in that familiar vertical salute, frozen mid-frame as if cast in bronze. The tension between the everyday and the iconic was too rich to ignore.

The humour in this image comes not from mockery but from geometry. The white tent backdrop flattens the space, stripping it of any visual depth and turning her into a cutout against a temporary canvas. Her floral dress softens the hard lines of the block and rigging, while the tote bag with Klimt’s Judith teeters on the edge of parody. But she’s unaware — or maybe she’s perfectly aware and doesn’t care. That indifference is what makes the moment.

The composition rests on balance. The verticality of the tent seam, the ropes, her posture — all drawing the eye upwards — contrasts with the squat, anchored base. I kept the edges tight to enforce that containment. It needed to feel slightly claustrophobic, like she was boxed into this pose, part of the installation.

Technically, this was a textbook exposure — no fancy tricks. Midday light, harsh but manageable thanks to the diffusion of the tent canvas. The colours are honest: skin tones hold, whites aren’t blown, and detail is sharp enough to read every texture — the grain of the concrete, the wrinkles in the tent, the fine dust on her sandals.

This isn’t a decisive moment in the Cartier-Bresson sense. It’s an absurd one. And that absurdity, framed without embellishment, often says more than anything staged.