Finding a Photographer in Rome

“You want a photographer?” As I hung up the phone from talking to my editor, I wondered how the hell was I going to pull that off. It was Friday night, later, in July and in Italy where people are at the seaside leaving Rome to the tourists and people like me who cover conferences.

Early Saturday one of the desk staff at my hotel handed me a phone book and told me the word for photographer. I called and called and left messages on answering machines in English. No one called back. I doubt if anyone understood me.

At the conference hotel, different from where I was staying, I asked Markus one of the concierges for help. He was young, his scalp covered in light red stubble similar to a five o’clock shadow in the wrong place. I watched him sort out lost luggage, booking for a guided tour, a doctor with nary a blink of his grey eyes which crossed when I told him what I wanted. But only for a second. "We will try madame, but..."

"I understand."

“How many of the requirements can we be flexible on?” he asked.

“The credit card and English.” I knew I could go to the ATM machine (I was wrong because for some reason my card didn’t work, although it did when I get back leaving me almost cashless for the remainder of the trip).

After close to 22 calls he found my guy, but not for Sunday night but Monday, when Luigi, the photograph (LEP) returned to the city from the beach. He said he was going back after he finished with me.

I met him at 11:30 Monday. He was a short man, grey-haired, dressed in a black suit that did not look as if he had been outside in the heat (maybe he changed in the men’s room). He reminded me of Allan, a man I almost married years ago. Allan was a good man. LEP was a good photographer and maybe a good man.

He had bustle down to a science.

We rushed around taking as many people as possible. I wanted both the names and the non-names among the attendees. LEP knew the hotel back and forward and we took so many shortcuts through the bowels of the building that I was almost on a first name basis with the cooks and laundress. I wore a pedometer that day and before I gave it back to the owner, I had logged just over 7 miles.

I gave my initial instructions using Markus as a translator. From then on we resorted to hand motions. I learned melori (better, but don’t count on my spelling). He learned closer. “Perfecto” worked for both of us. He laughed each time he called me Signora Donna, which is a little like saying Lady, Lady or Mrs. Lady. His eye was that of an artist, and many of the shots weren’t news worthy but were beautiful.

We finished and he took my hand, not to kiss, but to point out that he would be back in half an hour with my CD-ROM. He was. A half an hour after that photos were at my paper.

I walked upstairs, wrote a note to the Markus' manager that I thought Markus walked on water. Whether there are stones under the surface for his feet didn't matter.