Outside / Inside

I walked on foot to Rome (from Siena), recording that walk with a camera obscura I made myself from a paper tube. I had only one image per day. The tube was a diary of the inside and the outside, marked by thoughts, stamps, and found objects.

Walking is a form of therapy for me. At a time when I needed to clear my head, engage my body, and change my surroundings, I spontaneously decided to walk to Rome. My time was limited, so the route was shaped to fit a twelve day walk, and I set out from Siena.

I have long worked with handmade camera obscuras as a personal way of recording the places I pass through. For each journey, I create a camera from a material connected to the destination. Everything from the initial idea and the search for the object to the making of the camera usually happens on site. In this case, however, the camera was made at home, as this is where the pilgrimage began. Using a plain paper tube, I built a simple camera obscura for photographic paper.

During the walk, I was limited to one image per day, with no possibility of repetition. Each photograph was therefore the result of a single decision and an acceptance of the risk that it might fail. I was not interested in technical perfection, but in authenticity, concept, and the pleasure of the process, which begins with an idea and ends with developing the photographs in my small bathroom.

The paper tube functioned not only as a photographic tool but also as a physical diary. On its outer surface, I wrote notes from the journey, marked it with pilgrimage stamps, and attached materials I found along the way. When I found the image of the day, I opened the camera and allowed light to form the photograph.