Never before hand printed.

In October of 2005, photographer, Matthew Willman left South Africa and travelled to Rome to capture on film an image he had held in his mind for 20 years, a catholic clergyman walking across St Peters Square in the Vatican.

Over a period of two weeks Willman waited patiently, sitting each day between the towering colonnades watching for the right moment.

On the second to last day the heavens opened with a deluge of torrential rain over the Vatican. As the throngs of tourists scrambled for shelter, a lonely figure began walking steadfastly across the square. The three knots symbolizing the three vows each Franciscan monk makes flashed along the side of his vestments. Watching the monk stride past, Willman raised his camera and captured the fleeting moment forever.

First exhibited in South Africa in 2006 as a scanned digital print, the original negative was archived until in 2023 it was hand printed over 2 days by the photographer in his private darkroom.