The 100 Day Project #49

Roman Faith

Rome, Italy, 2014

The 100 Day Project, Day 49

Mike and I travel as much as possible. When we married in 2014 we kept the wedding small intentionally — so we could take an extensive honeymoon. Nearly three weeks across Europe by train. Geneva to Italy, France, and England, ending in Scotland.

With several days in Rome, we took a guided tour of the city with a lovely gentleman named Fabrizio. He walked us through layers of the city that most visitors never see — old churches, hidden courtyards, underground history. This photograph was made in one of those churches, a place with Etruscan roots buried deep in its foundations. Centuries of human life, stacked beneath your feet.

I am not a fan of organized religion. But I love the peace of religious spaces — the particular quality of silence that accumulates in a room where generations of people have come to sit with something larger than themselves. There is a weight to that stillness that I find genuinely moving.

I was working toward a photograph that captured the Itialian bible and the sweep of the nave beyond it. Then, at just the right instant, a young woman from our tour group stepped into the frame. She completed the image in a way I could not have planned. A single figure in an ancient space. Seeking. Wondering. Pausing.

That is the photograph I had been waiting for without knowing it.

About the 100 Day Project: A global creative challenge where thousands of artists share a piece of their practice every single day for 100 days. I'm joining creatives around the world, and I'm excited to bring you along. Each day I'll be sharing one of my photos — some recent, some old, and some from my current project — along with the story behind it: where I was, who I was with, and why I love it.