Born in Rome in 1925, Tazio Secchiaroli makes his debut as snapshot “clicker” during the Second World War as he seeks out the smiling, anonymous faces of young American soldiers and learns how to approach people, foresee their reactions and anticipate any resistance to his camera. Secchiaroli is fascinated by this direct contact with Fedeli, continues with a Roman daily evening newspaper and finally goes to work with the agency of Porry Pastorel, the maestro for entire generations of Roman photoreporters. By 1955, Secchiaroli has acquired sufficent self-confidence, so together with Sergio Spinelli, he decides to found the “Roma Press Photos” agency. The first scoop for the new-born company, in the summer of 1956, is linked to the Montesi case and it demonstrates the considerable organizational skills of a team that is able to transform itself into a private-investigation agency. “Ecco le prove”, (‘Here’s the evidence’) is the caption to the pictures by Secchiaroli who, after long detective work, has been able to trail Piero Piccioni and Ugo Montagna and photograph them together at the Foro Italico. But it is the August bank holiday of 1958 that marks the beginning of a genre that will confirm Secchiaroli and his paparazzi colleagues. Going round the night-time haunts in Via Veneto, Piazza di Spagna and all the other most celebrated places of the Dolce Vita in Rome, Secchiaroli and other young photographers, bored by the long hot summer, are walking around on the night of August 15th with no particular place to go when they suddenly come across their first victim of the evening: at a table in the Café de Paris, the ex-king Farouk is sitting between two lovely young ladies. Secchiaroli crosses the roed and “shoots” two flash_bulbs. He has no time to shoot a third one, beacouse Ferouk has grabbed hold of him and has lifted him righit off the ground.Guidotti quickly takes another shot of the precious reel of film is safe.one hour later,they are at “Brik Top” : a night_club where Ava Gardner and Antony Franciosa are sittign at the same table. Secchiaroli finds a trick to get past the closely guarded antrance and, whith a minute flash_gun hidden under his jacket he manages to surprise the two as they are sitting together in a dark corner. Franciosa jumps up and foors one of the photographers whit his fist, panic breaks out and the other pothographers rush in to take the scene of the fight. The chase spiòòs out

The adrenaline keeps working for Secchiaroli and Guidotti who, now on their way back home, bump into another famous couple: Anita Ekberg draggign her drunken husbend, Antony Stell, out of the “vecchia Roma” club after a night out on the town. Annoyed by the flashes of the photographers. Steel tries to chase Secchiaroli to get hold of the imcriminating reel but he sways drunkenly and crashes to the ground. His wife him back to the hotel. The nex day, photographs of the three episodes come out in the illustrated magazines with details of the scandal. The night consecrates the Dolca Vita and a genre is born : assault photography, carried out by small squads of photographes w\ho, with a fine sense of timing, record the attacks of

famous personalities on their unfortunate colleagues.

The pictures that are snatched from the night_life of Rome arouse the curiosity of Federico Fellini who is working on the screenplay of the film “La Dolce Vita” that starts out as a study of the most successful photographic reports and of the character of the assault photographer. During his cooperation with Fellini, Secchiaroli takes up a regular job as photoreporter of the set. He is not so much a stage photographer as what the Americans used to call a “special”, a reporter who, with his camera, records what happens on the set while the film is being made. On his first job Secchiaroli, who, was using the same aggressive way of shooting of the early years, was nick_named ”Paparazzo” by Fellini himself (Paparazzo was the name of the

most irreverent Fellini’s friend at high_school).

Secchiaroli thus changes and he once chased up and down Via Veneto, he becomes their image consultant, the one who can detect and capture a sudden emotion, a spontaneous expression that arrests the imagination of the public. Sophia Loren , Marcello Mastroianni, Brigitte Bardot choose him as their own photographer so as to apper to the world in a naturl splendor, in which light gives value to the whole picture and every line of the face holds the secret of there is always a hint of irony and defiance. However, his work with the film director was also decisive for refining the expressive power of his photographs and it is with Fellini that Secchiaroli learns the value of light. “One day,” recalls Secchiaroli. “the director was doing screen tests with some actresses. He was gesticulating widely as he always did, when at a certain point he raised his arm in a solemn manner but, just as. I was taking a picture of him, a spotlight went on just above his head and the light came straight into the picture. I took another one immediately. I didn’t even print the first one but Fellini asked me to show him the contact prints and he definetely decided to print it. A beatiful light came out from his head and fingers,it seemed like some sort of god and from that day on really have learned the meaning of light. I also got from Fellini the ability of basic skills.

He cropped my photos, cutting out the superfluous”.

The refined shooling of Fellini gave excellent results. One thing in Secchiaroli’s sensitivity and in his attitude towards film stars has changed, the fact that, while in the Via Veneto period the hunt became a word against the emptiness of the tabloid’s world, he now removes the veils form this mythical job showing, with a certain irony, the more human traits of the people underneath, acting in a more professional, decent and useful way.

 "The original paparazzo" 1996 edited by Davide Faccioli. Edizioni Photology.