From Aventine to Palantine

In 2024, I walked the Rome 7 hills: Aventine, Caelian, Esquiline, Viminal, Quirinal, Capitoline, Palatine. Camera in hand and no fixed agenda except to see what the city was actually doing. This is not the Rome of guidebooks and bucket lists. This is the Rome that exists between because of its people. The guitar player on the corner, the priest walking with particular pride, the couple arguing on the stairs, the helmet someone left and never came back for.

Rome is probably one of the most layered cities in the world. Beneath every street there is another street. Beneath every era, another era. The seven hills were the city’s originated, the reason Rome is here at all, and walking them is to feel that operating, underneath everything that has been built on top of it.

These 51 collages are not postcards, they are not the Colosseum, not the Forum and not your bucket-list. They show ordinary people living their daily lives. This is what Rome feels like.

About the Virtual Journeys series

This is part of the Virtual Journeys project, a series of urban walks translated into graphic novel pages. Between 1000 to 1500 photo’s made on a city walk that shows familiar scenes in unfamiliar places. On average I make one photo every 10 seconds.

The photo’s are selected, cut-up and processed to create a graphical novel experience. Reduced photo-realism and colours remove distractions and enhance the scene.

These are stories about life in a city that is very close to our own life. Showing that all over the world we are doing the same things.

[View all Virtual Journeys]