Michael Wilkins
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Photograph of the upper tiers of the Colosseum shot from below against a pale sky, rows of arches curving across the frame with the low sun bursting as a star through one of the openings.

Arcade

Rome, Italy · December 2019

1D X Mark II, 35 millimetres, f 22, 1/500 of a second, ISO 3200

Two thousand years old and still the best-organised facade in Rome.

Stood underneath and shot straight up the flank so the arcade curves out of one corner and fills the frame. Stopped down hard to turn the low winter sun into a star where it comes through a single arch — the one bit of drama in an otherwise entirely rational piece of engineering. What gets me about the Colosseum up close is how repetitive it is: the same arch, eighty times, and it still works.

Part of Rome, a series.