I am excited to see some of my photos from my trip to Rome in the first printed issue of Wayfare Magazine. When I mentioned to a friend and colleague Peggy Wong that I was taking a trip to Rome, she told me that she wanted to see my photos when I returned, and that she may want to include them in the first printed edition of Wayfare Magazine (a cool new travel mag that turns that category a bit on it's head.)
What was nice about this request was that it wasn't really an assignment. She wanted to see the photos that I would take for myself, she was especially interested in seeing what I shot for my personal series of work entitled "Bodies of Land" which is comprised of out of focus landscapes, or in this case cityscape's.
I also played a lot with Instagram for this trip since I liked the format, the accessibility to capture things at any time and the tones that were rendered with some of the filters. I am usually not a big "effects" photographer, nor do I like a lot of retouching. I liken the filters to using different types of film or printer paper.
Here is the text that accompanies the images in the magazine:
Photographer Leigh Beisch, along with
her husband, father, and ten-year-old
daughter, forgo their annual trip to
Cape Cod for something a little more mysterious. Here we get a light-filled
glimpse into the beauty of a region teeming with old world intrigue.
We decided to rent a small
apartment in Trastevere, located on the outskirts of Rome and just south of Vatican City. We booked
the apartment for two weeks so we could spend one week as tourists and the next week as
locals. While Rome is where scale and extraordinary monuments are on display at every turn, the
color and texture of this neighborhood are what captured our hearts. Here we felt like we could experience art,
not just see it. The
building of our tiny rented apartment had the most amazing rustic front door
that was designed
to keep out invaders during the medieval period. There was also a stone
staircase that was
so worn with age that I could imagine a young slave girl carrying water up them thousands of years ago. Staying
here instead of a hotel allowed us to let the language of the place—the people, the light, the
smells—to seep in and shape our experience. The family and I enjoyed being part of the neighborhood’s everyday
routines, sampling from the well-visited osterias and trattorias; shopping at the local
designer clothing boutiques; and enjoying the famous Sunday flea market, Porta Portese. One
place we frequented was local trattoria La Scala, where my daughter would order her
favorite dish of spaghetti con burro e parmigiano, a simple dish of pasta with butter and
parmigiano. One of my favorite dishes here was the tagliolini cacio e pepe con fioridi zucca e
pachino, a pasta with a beautiful squash blossom layered on top, then sprinkled with parmesan and
ground pepper.
SEE. I spent some time shooting for my personal work
entitled “Bodies of Land,”
which is a series of abstract
landscapes that are out of
focus with the subject matter
being light and color. This
allows me to create a more
timeless landscape that
captures the imagination.
EAT. My father and I woke up early a few mornings
to photograph. Before we
headed out, we stopped
at the local Bar for
morning cappuccinos and jam
filled pastries. I loved
the colorful trays here
Our first morning in Rome,
we headed to the Piazza di Santa Maria, where we found a beautiful fountain
guarding the entrance to the Basilica of Our Lady, or Basilica di Santa Maria,
one of the most ancient churches in Rome. So ancient, in fact, that it’s one of
the few churches where you can see Christ depicted as a living prophet, rather
than on the cross. It was here that I noticed the light streaming in through
the clerestory, illuminating select statues and giving the sense of divine
light. This light shaped my experience in Rome, becoming my subject matter and
focal point of the trip. The photo of the portal looking out onto the wall with
a row of dotted trees was at the entrance to Hadrian’s Villa, a Roman Emperor
of the 2nd century AD. The wall pictured here was built to be just one mile
long, which was the length of the palace and, according to our guide, the
distance that the Emperor’s physician had advised him to walk every day. The
morning light of this photo gives us a glimpse into what one of the Emperor’s
walks might have been like. From the cobblestone streets and terracotta and
maize buildings cast in deep wine hues to street windows dotted with laundry
lines, Rome was richer than I had ever imagined. I loved the color of the
place, and the way the light would fill ancient crevices to reveal some things and
hide others. It felt as though this light held the secrets of Rome.
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