two men in rome.

For my creative nonfiction class, we had to find a photograph that haunted us. It had to be a picture of people we’ve never met, a place we’ve never been. It all tied back to this essay we read about studium and punctum, a couple Latin words that I’m still not quite sure of the meaning. But I do understand that one (studium) is kind of the larger picture, for lack of better words. A general context, whether it be socially, culturally, or politically. The other, punctum, is some detail within the photo that sticks out to you. A minute detail like not seeing the full face of the subject, or maybe something like the grass stains on the knees of the subject’s pants. 

I picked a photograph that I got off someone’s Instagram. One of two men walking the streets of Rome, shot on film, and relatively out of focus. You can’t even fully distinguish the shapes of their noses. But I liked it. It felt right that it was out of focus, even though that was not exactly the photographer’s intent (according to his caption). 

photo by levi smith.

Our writing assignment tied to the photo was to write a bit about the studium and a bit about the punctum. Now, I know this isn’t exactly what I usually post about, but life lately hasn’t been full of experiences that I can put into a blog – either because it seems too boring or because I want to respect the privacy of those around me, since I haven’t really spent a lot of time alone. So, if I may, I’m going to just share the little blurbs that I wrote in the 10 minutes allocated to the writing exercise in class. I guess this was technically supposed to be nonfiction, but since I don’t know the people, I can’t really write the truth. But I can write a version of it, the version that’s in my mind. 

Studium…

The photographer either didn;t focus the lens of his film camera, or maybe some random camera thing happened as the image imprinted itself onto the small square of the roll of film. Regardless, something happened to make this black and white image so grainy and out of focus. Two men walk down a street in Rome, and maybe they know each other, maybe they don’t. Perhaps they’re murmuring small comments to themselves in Italian, or walking silently, side by side, past stone buildings whose true colors cannot be portrayed in black and white film. Past closed metal garage doors and mopeds that are cold to the touch, because the May air has not been warm long enough to keep the metal itself warm. Like the men, it hasn’t yet felt the first heat wave of the year. They haven’t felt that heat since late last summer, not since the heat went away with the end of September. 

Punctum…

The man in the plain black cassock may be walking back from his time praying for the sick in the terminal illness wing of the local hospital. The lesser clergy – like the priests and deacons – are only slightly removed from these Catholics, the ones with their rosaries and their rambling, unorganized prayers for healing. The priests and the deacons are only a couple steps ahead of them, they just have a few extra God points and memorized liturgies. This man, whether he be a priest or not, has defined posture. A straight back with stiff shoulders, arms hanging down at his side unmoving, instead of swinging like the arms of the man walking next to him. The man in the black robes is looking ahead of him, and yet he still stares at the ground seven feet in front of him. The lack of focus of the lens makes his face blur, and his eyes are too dark from the shadows of being sunken to tell what he’s thinking. But maybe, he’s just praying. Maybe he’s saying, “Nel nome del Padre, e del Figlio, e dello Spirito Santo. Amen.” Maybe, his eyes are dark because of what and who he has just witnessed.

In his mind, he might be silently reciting the prayer of Sorrowful Mysteries. 

Gesù agonizza nel giardino

Gesù viene falgellato alla colonna

Gesù viene incoronato di spine

Gesù viene caricato della croce

Gesù muore in croce

In English, this translates to,

Jesus agonizes in the Garden

Jesus is scourged at the pillar

Jesus is crowned with thorns

Jesus is loaded with the cross

Jesus dies on the cross

In class (done with the whole studium/punctum thing now), we read another short essay about death photographs. That of a small toddler, eyes painted after she died so that she looks alive and awake. And that of a young boy, who was in a bed, staring at a ball next to his hand that he couldn’t play with. The ball is the punctum. As my professor read the essay aloud, and further explained about what death photographs are and why this little boy had a ball next to him, I felt ill. We also looked at other pictures in class: one from one of the first bombings in Ukraine by Russia in 2023, one of the victims of Hurricane Katrina sitting on an overpass, and the Dust Lady, a survivor of 9/11. I’ve always thought the phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words” is a bit overrated, or that it isn’t completely true (or at least not in every circumstance). But how do you find the words for these images, including the one of the young boy, or the feelings that arise in your chest after looking at them? 

dust lady, by stan honda

It’s in the moments like these where I truly feel that words hold much less power than they really do. Of course, it’s basically a sin for me to think that, let alone admit it. But I can’t deny that there are things no words can give justice to. Like how do I describe the feeling I felt when I saw the look on the Dust Lady’s face? I couldn’t help but put my arm across my chest, putting pressure so that maybe I could distract myself from the expression on her face. My chest tightened, not in a way I’ve written about, which has been about the feeling like a balloon swelling in my chest from happiness. Instead, it was a feeling of illness, like my stomach clenching and my chest tightening and my brain becoming a little light-headed. 

I didn’t feel like this when I first saw the photo I chose, of the two men in Rome. But, like with anything where you imagine the worst, I began to mold the man in the cassock into a version of himself that maybe reflects me. Does that make sense? In one of my lit classes, we talked about the death of the author. I think as I created this little narrative about this clergyman who lives thousands of miles from me and speaks a different language, I projected some part of myself onto him. After scribbling down those few paragraphs in class, I’ve been wondering about the creative choices I made. First, why the prayer of Sorrowful Mysteries? Why is he looking seven feet in front of him? Why didn’t I write about the man next to him, who looks older and maybe like he doesn’t work in the church? So many “why” questions, and I think I have the answer to some. 

I think the words that I am missing when I look at the pictures are the same ones that I am missing when I ask these questions. And I’m not quite sure how I’ll find them. Or if I will.

Thank you so much for reading. I appreciate you taking the time to get through it, or even to look at the pictures. Talk to you next time.