Photographers Blog

Rome, Italy

By Tony Gentile

I have never before seen an electoral campaign based solely on the appearance of the main political leaders on television talk shows.

After disappearing from the national stage for about a year former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi now enters the houses of Italians every day, more than once a day, on the screens broadcast by the biggest TV channels. The same is happening with the others leaders including outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti.

They invade our television sets so much that one of the most important Italian satirical show decided to produce a special edition of the program called “Gli Sgommati, elektion edition”, produced by Palomar and broadcast by Sky.

I went to the studio to follow a day of filming and was really impressed by the job they were doing and entertained by their funny gags.

Bersani, Monti, Berlusconi, and other Italian political leaders and VIP were transformed in to big rubber puppets operated by actors. Each character was moved by three actors. One moved the body, the head and the mouth. The second moved only the hands and the third the eyes, pupils and eyelids. They moved simultaneously.

Anzio, Italy

By Tony Gentile

A few months ago I exhibited my pictures during a photographic festival in Sicily. As I was hanging my work I was impressed by the images of another photographer which were displayed next to mine. They were war photos, in black and white, depicting World War II and I thought they were taken by an old photographer. But when I looked closer I saw that the photographer was young, and the pictures were taken only a year before. They were eerily similar to those shot during the 1940s, but the reportage concerned a re-enactment of the wartime landing of Allied forces in Anzio, about 60 km (37 miles) south of Rome.

Last week I glanced upon an announcement that the 69th anniversary of the Anzio landing was taking place, so I decided to go to take a look and cover this story. Unfortunately, due to the economic crisis, there were not many people involved in it this year but there were enough to make a picture story. While the rest of Italy was starting to celebrate the beginning of the Carnival season, these few war buffs were parading around in 70 year old army vehicles.

In the early hours of January 22, 1944, a convoy of 374 ships disembarked the 1st British Division on the coast just north of Anzio, while the 3rd American Division landed on the beaches near Nettuno (named Peter Beach and X-Ray Beach by the Allied forces). This was the beginning of Operation Shingle which had been so strenuously promoted by Winston Churchill.

By Kai Pfaffenbach

There were other big names supposed to be the super stars of this Euro 2012 – Portugal’s Christiano Ronaldo, Germany’s Bastian Schweinsteiger, Holland’s Robin van Persie or France’s Franck Ribery – they have all flown home by now and before the final between Spain and Italy there is only one guy left who will be recognized as the tournament’s big star: Mario Balotelli from Italy.

What a story. Adopted from African parents when he was three, brought up by Italian foster parents and now one of the most recognized strikers playing for England’s champions Manchester City and the man who brought Italy into the final with his two striking goals against an agonized German squad in the semi-final.

Covering all major soccer tournaments and big finals for the last 15 years I can’t remember one player who fascinates the media and fans like him. And it’s not only about the way he plays. The number of his nicknames seems endless. Super-Mario, after the popular video-game star, Balla-Balla Balotelli, as he is well known for his jokes with team mates or Mad Mario, as he gets quite furious on the pitch (he faced four red cards during the last Premier League) season.

By Stefano Rellandini

Venice has always been a peculiar destination for everyone who visits. As a town built on water it appears somewhat atypical; no cars, no motorcycles, not even any bikes. The only way to travel through the city is to walk or use the gondolas, the traditional boats of Venice.

Ships are primarily used to reach Venice and in recent years these have become bigger and bigger. Every weekend seven or eight arrive at the lagoon of Venice. They then sail in front of San Marco square to reach the harbor.

The transition through the lagoon is always an exciting moment, especially witnessing the dimensions of these huge sea giants against the surrounding territory.

By Max Rossi

4 o’clock on a Saturday morning, a confused call told me a cruise ship had run aground near the island of Giglio in the beautiful Italian region of Tuscany. My first reaction was “I can’t go!”, Pope Benedict was waiting for me to take pictures of him shaking hands with the new Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti in his private library at the Vatican. No way could I leave that event uncovered but the bad thing was that I was the only staff photographer in Rome – just 150 km (90 miles) from the ship.

A stringer photographer, Remo Casilli, was sent there immediately and he was able to get pictures of the survivors still covered in their blankets at Santo Stefano harbor and the first images of the ship lying on its side near the island. I spent the hours before the meeting with the Pope trying to get in touch with some photographers on the island, and finally, thanks to Facebook, got the phone number of a member of local news agency Giglio News to provide us with the first night images of the ship in the Giglio Harbour.

In the meantime chief photographer Stefano Rellandini was also searching and filing to to our global desk in Singapore whatever images we found. Saturday afternoon was spent coordinating and editing our stringer pictures from the island. I left Rome on Sunday morning and arrived on the island around 3 in the afternoon due to a long waiting list for the ferry in Santo Stefano harbor. I had the only car on the ferry. The rest were rescue vehicles.

By Alessandro Bianchi

On my mind was the number 77; the number of my press badge and the number I gave to police to get through security at the entrance to the court house.

Within a few minutes, the stepladders of photographers and television crews formed a pyramid that could block your view if you had chosen the wrong place. It was like a lottery and you had to wait to see if you had picked the right number.

The day before the verdict in the Amanda Knox appeal trial there were so many of us that the public, almost as if we were part of a show, pulled on our shirts and moved our ladders so they could see. The public were, after all, invading our 15 minutes, our sacred 15 minutes.

If it is written in a newspaper, is it true or false?

One of the most interesting parts of our job as a photo-reporter is one of the basic principles of journalism – that is telling the TRUE and REAL STORY to newspaper readers and online viewers who were not there but want to know the real story behind the headlines.

But journalism is changing. Long gone are the days when people said “It must be true, the newspaper says so.” Especially in Italy, it looks like some reporters do not tell the whole truth. They do not look for the truth nor do they investigate to try to arrive at the truth. They look for little or wrong clues. They use it to prove their story; a biased truth. Do they do this to confuse the readers and to contribute to warped thoughts? Are the journalists simply not capable of good reporting?

I’m irritated when these types of journalists use our pictures to prove their false version of reality.