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By Phil Berry

Sony RX10 Mark lll; f/4.0; 15.2mm; 1/800s; ISO 100

I took it some time ago when I was in Rome. The day was stormy with some rain and the sun came out as I was passing this part ruin at the Forum.

I snapped this with a stone bank as a foreground. The explosive contrast and dramatic light gave me the impression of flames and smoke and that Rome was burning, again.

Don’s response

This isn’t your usual tourist snap of a famous historical site. It skips the usual cliché angles and views to instead reveal to us just a fragment of that unmistakable architecture peeping over a scruffy and non-descript wall.

The drama comes from the interaction between the looming columns rising up from behind the dour, glum barrier, and the grainy, high-contrast sky.

It has, for me, the feel of an old newspaper picture with its compressed greyscale and areas of featureless white sky. That may not be to everyone’s taste, but then again, a lower-contrast interpretation of the image would no longer have the same gritty quality that makes it memorable.

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