Lola Graham
60 × 90 cm — 1200 EUR
L E A D
«Butchery» was photographed in Rome in May 2026, on one of the last mornings of my first trip to Italy. I had got up at five and walked out into a city that was still asleep — no crowds, no people, every shop still shut. This window was one of the few things already lit.
S T A T E M E N T
At five in the morning Rome empties out completely: the tourist flow hasn’t started, the streets belong to no one, and the shop fronts stand closed behind their own reflections. I was moving through it inside my own thoughts rather than looking for anything.
This window stopped me — first by its texture and its density, the sheer amount of small matter packed behind glass. The response was indirect.
Food in photography has interested me for a long time, and so has everything that branches off it: my other project, Carne — the Italian for meat — works with the female body, skin and living matter in a far softer register. It was that work that made me stop at this counter, still empty, still open to the day that hadn’t started yet.
Digital capture, black and white both in the treatment and in the way the image was seen. What holds it is the fall-off: the darkness the counter emerges from, and the narrow band of light where everything becomes legible. Outside that band the room gives almost nothing away.
At its core this is travel photography, and I don’t pretend otherwise. I’m interested in local places, and food is one of the ways a place becomes knowable — Rome especially, with its history and the cult it builds around eating. More than that, the work is about wanting to spend time with things that exist only from the exact spot where you are standing, at that exact moment, and nowhere else.
W O R K D E T A I L S
Medium — black-and-white photograph, digital capture
Paper — Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta
Print dimensions — 60 x 90 cm
Image dimensions — 60 x 90 cm
Margins / mount — no mount
Frame / presentation — black frame, Italian moulding; anti-reflective glazing
Edition — limited edition – 5 prints
Certificate — individual certificate of authenticity
P R I N T & D I S P L A Y
Recommended material — a baryta or smooth fine-art rag rather than a heavily textured matte.
Why this material for this image — almost the entire frame sits in deep shadow, and the work exists in the distance between that shadow and the lit counter. Textured matte papers lift the blacks and flatten exactly that distance; a baryta surface holds black density and keeps the specular detail in the glass, the LED strip and the packaging. This is the one image where the paper choice changes what is visible, not just how it feels.
Margins and framing — black frame, no mount, so the image continues into the frame rather than being cut off by a white border. A wide white mount fights the picture: it puts the brightest surface in the room directly against near-black. Anti-reflective glazing is not optional here — standard glass turns a dark print into a mirror.
Light and viewing distance — directed light at roughly 30°, warm, low intensity. The work reads from two metres and rewards coming closer. Never hang it facing a window.
Type of space — deep-toned or darker walls; dining rooms, bars, restaurants, studies. On a bright white minimalist wall the print reads as a black rectangle and its interior disappears.
Avoid — bright evenly lit rooms, backlighting.
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