It’s
not every day that someone would take a year off from their job to travel
across the globe, and pursue a long-held passion of telling stories. But
London-based BBC journalist Mario Cacciotolo decided to pack his bags and take
his pet photography project ‘Someone Once Told Me’ on a world tour.
‘Someone
Once Told Me’ (SOTM) commenced in 2007, and catalogues different individuals
and what ‘someone once told them’. In short, a person holds up a large piece of
paper, upon which they write something memorable that someone once told them,
that has impacted them greatly in their lives at that point of time, and in the
future. Mario then clicks a black-and-white photograph of them, records a sound
byte of the story behind the quote, and uploads both on the project’s official
website. The project has been running for over 2000 days, with seven new
photographs being posted every Friday.
Mario
started SOTM from London, working on it for an entire year before the website
went live on the internet. After that, he continued to take short trips to
different places in order to collect stories from different people. He also
backpacked across India, to places such as Delhi, Rajasthan, Agra and Mumbai, where
he found 88 individuals for SOTM. But it
was only recently that he decided to go on the road, taking the project with
him. He has been to places such as Paris, Geneva, Bologna, Vienna, Malta,
Istanbul and Cape Town. He will be spending the next four months in Asia,
visiting countries such as Japan and South Korea.
So
how did the project originate? “I’ve really liked the idea of people telling
stories among themselves, and I’ve always enjoyed the art of storytelling,”
Mario says.
“In
England, we have a saying that goes ‘everyone has a book inside them’. I don’t
agree with this, because it’s a very complicated thing. However, I do believe
that people have stories. Everyone has a story to tell about themselves,
something they’ve experienced. I started to think, how can I capture these
stories from different people? I was getting into photography for the first
time, seven years ago. It’s a hobby, and I’m very passionate about it. So I
thought that this would be the best way to do it,”
When
asked about the inspiration behind SOTM, Mario says, “Somebody I didn’t know
very well paid me a small compliment, and I thought that was nice of them. I
was going to keep this compliment in my mind for the rest of the day, to keep
myself in a positive frame of mind. That was the trigger point. I don’t know
why, but I started thinking that everyone is told things every single day, and
some of it sticks with them. I thought it would be interesting that people
could pick that one thing they’ve been told, something that has stuck with
them,”
One
of the best things for Mario about SOTM is that some of the people who take
part in the project have a story that they haven’t revealed to anyone before.
“Quite
a few of these people have used this as a confession, or sort of cathartic
tool,” he says. They haven’t shared it with anyone before me, and they use it
as a way to get something off their chest. It may not have come up in their
conversations with other people but it has stuck with them, and they only
reveal it when a pen and paper is thrust at them,”
If
you would like to know more about the project, you can follow the world tour
and even submit your own SOTM story on the official website
(someoneoncetoldme.com). You can also follow Mario on Twitter @SOTMario, and
get in touch with him about the project.
By Lavanya Narayan
The writer is a final year Media & Communication student specializing in Journalism
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