Fine photographic art in the fitness room of Villa Aurelia

Hilda Steinkamp
Nov 27, 2025
5 min read

Updated: Nov 28, 2025

Marco Suriani makes landscapes glow next to the sports mat

Marco Suriani in front of his landscape photos in the Sala Villa Aurelia

Arte e Pilates

In the dreary late November, with no festive pre-Christmas glamour in sight, the Villa Aurelia Sporting Club Roma cheers up weary bodybuilders with a special event.

On Monday, November 24, 2025, there is an exceptional Pilates session instead of the usual Ginnastica Dolce , with which Domenico gently and sustainably gets the heart rate of our women's and men's group over 50/60 going, for over 60 minutes on Monday mornings. He will be joined today by Federica, Pilates instructor at Villa Aurelia and motivator for 90 minutes of stretching, balancing, and strengthening on the mat.

Meanwhile, a catering team has set up a cake buffet for the sweet reward. And they've decorated the bare walls with extraordinary A4 photographs.

Because today's star guest is Marco Suriani

A native Roman on globetrotting adventures. He, too, is part of the young Villa Aurelia team, responsible for the swimming pool area. That's how he earns his broth. But his true calling lies in photography. Through self-study, he learned and mastered camera techniques. A good eye for a special photograph comes with practice. For Marco, photography is more than choosing camera settings and pressing the shutter. He wants to convey unusual visions of our planet, to amaze us with the fact that his landscapes, however surreal and beautiful they may seem to him and us, are nevertheless part of our earthly habitat. You just have to see the beauty. And yes, he can: capture, and teach us to see, beauty. Marco's photographs vividly reveal the undiscovered beauties of this earth. He sees his artistic mission as a continuous learning process, a lifelong journey of discovery. And as a refined craft. "No AI" is explicitly stated under his work on Instagram .

Towards a special race track

- that's where the athletes at Villa Aurelia are headed as soon as the Pilates class ends. Effort before pleasure! Marco Suriani's roughly three dozen landscape photos from recent years trace his photographic explorations around the globe: from Bolivia and Chile to Namibia, and via Ethiopia and Egypt to Uzbekistan and Greenland.

Through the eye of his camera

the photographer portrays water and deserts, two natural forces, which he approaches with professional guidance.

Uzbekistan, Central Asia, the Zycylkum Salt Desert. "Un deserto particolarissimo," is how Marco describes it. All sorts of shrubs grow here. And on the sand, "relitti di navi," shipwrecks, rot away. Because this desert wasn't always here. Until the early 20th century, the Aral Sea lay here, a freshwater inland sea and the fourth largest in the world. Now it's 90% dried up. Oh dear – climate change? Global warming? Anyway, Uzbekistan scores points with temperatures reaching 40 degrees Celsius in the continental summer.

"No," Marco objects, "purtroppo è azione dell'uomo!" So, desiccation is man-made, unfortunately. Exploitation of natural resources. During the Soviet era (from 1925 onwards), the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers were used to irrigate extensive cotton fields. This gigantomania under Stalin led to the drying up of the lake. Even after Uzbekistan's independence (1991), the area remains notorious for its health hazards – toxins from the cotton fields, carried by the wind, affecting people, animals, and plants.

The photographer knelt down for this photo, adopting a frog's-eye view. And in doing so, he allows one of the many small bushes, "meno di mezzo metro," he adds, to grow high into the rosy evening sky. "Vita nell'arido," he titles his photograph taken in the arid zone. And that's how I understand his vision: to restore grandeur and beauty to the tormented creature. A visual artist's homage to resilient nature in a defaced environment.

Right place at the right time?

Yes, one might think so. But appearances are deceiving. In fact, as Marco explains to me, it takes a trained eye for choosing the location and calm patience through hours of changing light and weather conditions until his camera lens captures the special moment and composition that transforms a landscape photograph into a work of art. Pure magic, as Marco says:"Un luogo dove la fotografia diventa pura magia".

His desert photograph from Egypt, "Deserto Bianco," speaks volumes of magic. The roads of the sand ( "Le vie della sabbia" ) remain untouched, without a human footprint.

Many of his photo locations are planned, others the photographer discovers spontaneously. In desert regions with only one unpaved main road and no marked side roads, he relies on a local guide with a jeep and a keen sense of the weather. Nevertheless, he has experienced firsthand how tents can collapse under a barrage of sand during sandstorms, and how respiratory tracts can become dangerously clogged with sand.

"Una foto minimalista," Marco calls his dune photo from Namibia. Gigantic sand formations in the desert completely overshadow the fully grown trees (minimal plants at the bottom of the image). "Ma il vero soggetto sono i colori," the photographer raves about his subject. It's the colors. The rising sun illuminates only the foreground slope; while "la parte più bassa" (the lower part) is still shrouded in shadow. Light and shadow—a matter of perspective. As in human life.

Even in Chile, Marco's pioneering camera eyes capture a desert landscape where veils of mist shroud the majestic Licancabur volcano. That photographer Marco sees himself as a "cercatore di sogni" (dream seeker) – his quest for dreams becomes evident here without many words:

Marco navigates around the icebergs in the Arctic Ocean with professional crews on icebreakers. He brings back photographic impressions that show the two sides of this powerful natural habitat – its beauty and its threat.

"Non voglio realismo. Voglio magia!"

This is Marco's conviction as a photographic artist. And these are his favorite photos:

Two snapshots in quick succession from the Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flat on Earth in southwestern Bolivia. Here, a prehistoric lake dried up naturally – it is believed - as early as 10,000 years ago.

The sun peeks over the horizon, casting a narrow, glowing orange sliver of light. The salt crust lies before it like an inhospitable, grayish lunar landscape. As it rises further, the sunlight covers the entire surface: the salt of our earth awakens. A photographic interpretation, not realism.

Luck, favor, and skill

These are the ingredients for his success as a photographer, Marco reveals to me. He's lucky with his local companions and the weather forecasts. He cultivates the favor of his network contacts. For example, he collaborates with National Geographic, the world-renowned US magazine with brilliant photographs and astonishing stories. He possesses skill as a photographer and hones it on his expeditions to faraway lands.

He earns his living as a fitness trainer at Villa Aurelia. Here, he wholeheartedly embraces the club's philosophy of attracting people to improve their health, but also to socialize. Today's event, with its dual nature, effortlessly achieves these goals: Pilates for physical wellness, Marco Suriani's photographic art for lively interaction among the attendees. And a third perk: Torta della nonna in four delicious variations – replenishing the calories lost through exercise ;-)!