Walked away almost overnight, without much explanation. They are the photographers of Piazza del Duomo. Or, at least, what’s left of it. Numbers far from when they were a permanent presence and went around “hunting” for tourists to pour corn into their hands to attract pigeons, so that they could secure the most classic of Milanese photos. Today they are limited to a few dozen professionals, all foreigners and with regular VAT numbers. Between the end of February and the beginning of March they were removed by local police officers, with a sui generis explanation (“you can’t stay here anymore”) and without certainty about their future working in the square.
So some of them turned to Nidil-Cgil, the trade union organization that deals with the protection of precarious workers. With a garrison in front of Palazzo Marino they managed to start a dialogue together with the security councilor, Marco Granelli, who received them. There is no clear outcome yet, but at least now they have a perspective, which still needs to be “polished” and improved.
Buskers
The municipal administration has decided, without formal acts, that the activity of the “street” photographer will henceforth fall within the scope of the regulation of street artists: a document issued in 2012, at the dawn of the first council center-left (led by Giuliano Pisapia), which served to regulate the activity especially of musicians, setting predefined locations in the center of Milan and allowing reservations by time slots. A method that works, but which is not very suitable for the photographer’s profession, by its nature impossible to “fix” in a precise point (perhaps not very panoramic).
The booking portal itself seems more suitable for those who make music. The stations seem to be designed more to limit the emission of decibels, while the photographer needs other features. And then, for example, it asks for the artist’s social profile: among the predefined ones there are Youtube and Spotify. Granelli himself, during the meeting, recognized that the platform must be adapted to the profession of the photographer, even if the underlying regulation also provides for “itinerant professions”, with related “stations” which, however, cannot be booked through the portal .
Workstations and portal
The first meeting will be followed by another. In the meantime, the Duomo photographers will meet with the union to develop some proposals to submit to councilor Granelli. The administration’s orientation would be to provide for a modification of the regulation to better adapt it to the photographer’s profession, but it will take time. In the meantime, stations compatible with this activity would be added to the platform. Andrea Bacchin, a Nidil-Cgil official, thinks that the best solution is to register on the portal and then go to the streets simply communicating your presence through the application.
“We would like to avoid that the need to ‘contingent’ presence is resolved with a hunt for shifts and we will propose a physical desk for those who perhaps have problems with the Italian language”, explains Bacchin to MilanoToday: “Photographers complain about being sent away without many explanations, while they try to behave as regularly as possible. At the same time, there continue to be people in the square who carry out more extreme activities, such as the ‘donation’ of bracelets which is immediately followed by a request for money”.
There is corn knot, which should not be fed to pigeons. Photographers declare themselves willing to stop, although photography with birds is still in great demand (especially by oriental tourists). But the objective is certainly not to act irregularly, on the contrary. “These are people who are absolutely open to regulation”, confirms Bacchin: “Now we expect to be listened to in the proposals we make”.
Photographers on Airbnb
The impression is that a solution will be found to please everyone. Both the administration, which is evidently trying to improve the ‘decorum’ of Piazza del Duomo, and the photographers, who claim to practice a profession that is historic and characteristic of the square itself. Even though the days when they had almost exclusivity and had a laboratory in the subway for the development of film are over. Today, with digital technology and phones capable of taking appreciable photos, tourists are more inclined towards ‘do it yourself’, and the square is (even more than in the past) a real photographic set at any time of the day or evening .
Furthermore, for the more demanding, professional photographic tour services for the center of Milan have multiplied. In this case the meeting between supply and demand takes place online, for example in the ‘experiences’ section of Airbnb. Starting from less than 100 euros per person, you take home a few dozen “pro” shots, to show to friends and publish on social media.
