Michael Wilkins
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Night photograph of the Fountain of the Naiads in Piazza della Repubblica, its jets lit and frozen mid-spray, flanked by the curved floodlit colonnades of the piazza against a black sky.

Naiadi

Rome, Italy · December 2019

1D X Mark II, 28 millimetres, f 22, 30 seconds, ISO 200

The fountain was scandalous when it went up. Now it just lights the square.

Piazza della Repubblica after midnight, when the square finally empties and the fountain has the place to itself. A long exposure turns the jets to smoke and the curved colonnades on either side hold the frame together. The bronze naiads caused a genuine scandal when they were unveiled in 1901 — considered far too lifelike — and now nobody walking past gives them a second look.

Part of Rome, a series.