Photo of the Month, May 2026.
Column curated by Dario Sequi.
Some traditions become clearer when they change.
Not because change makes them stronger.
Not always.
But because, when something is missing, what remains becomes easier to see.
Every May 1, Cagliari stops.
It stops for Sant’Efisio.
For an ancient vow.
For a promise that has crossed centuries without becoming habit.
As a photographer, I have told this day for years.
Each time, I look for a precise point.
Not only the colour.
Not only the crowd.
Not only the beauty of the traditional costumes.
I look for the moment when the rite reveals its structure.
The quiet part that holds together faith, memory and belonging.
In 2026, during the 370th Feast of Sant’Efisio, that structure appeared in a different way.
More exposed.
More direct.
Because of the emergency linked to lumpy skin disease in cattle, the traditional gilded cart drawn by oxen could not accompany the statue in the usual way.
The procession had to change form.
But it did not lose direction.
Sant’Efisio moved forward on human shoulders.
Carried by the confraternity.
Surrounded by the faithful.
Exposed to light, eyes, prayers and petals.
This photo begins there.
At the point where a tradition, deprived of one of its most familiar frames, shows its centre.
The statue is high.
Beneath it, the shoulders that carry it.
Around it, a dense crowd.
Blue banners.
Uniforms.
Hats.
Hands.
Petals.
Faces.
It is a full image.
Almost without empty space.
And yet it is not confused.
The centre is clear: a community carrying its vow.
The gilded cart, in all its beauty, always creates a certain distance.
It elevates.
It protects.
It orders.
This year that distance became smaller.
Not by design.
By necessity.
And necessity, at times, moves the eye better than intention.
Seeing Sant’Efisio on the shoulders of men changed the measure of the procession.
It was not only the saint crossing the city.
It was the city carrying the saint.
In that gesture there was effort.
There was responsibility.
There was memory carried in the body, not only in the rite.
The weight, in this image, is not only physical.
It is the weight of a long history.
Of a renewed promise.
Of a devotion that does not look for shortcuts.
Not every detour betrays the road.
Some detours make the road more visible.
The Feast of Sant’Efisio is not folklore.
It never has been.
It is an ancient mechanism made of people, places, clothes, music, gestures and silence.
Every element has a role.
Every detail holds something together.
This year, one visible element was missing.
The cart.
The oxen.
The usual form of the procession.
But another element emerged with greater force.
Proximity.
Sant’Efisio seemed closer.
To the faithful.
To the people of Cagliari.
To visitors who had come from afar.
To those who already knew the story.
And to those seeing it for the first time.
Photography, when it works, does not add.
It removes.
It removes noise.
It removes explanation.
It removes distance.
What remains is an image.
And in this image, what remains is a people walking together.
Carrying on their shoulders not only a statue, but a deep part of their identity.
This is why I chose this photo as the image of the month.
Because it tells of a tradition changed, but not weakened.
A feast altered in form, but faithful in direction.
A rite that, through an unforeseen passage, revealed its most human core.
This year, Sant’Efisio did not only pass before the people. He passed within their step
Dario Sequi
The author
Dario Sequi curates the "Photo of the Month" column for Family's Notes. A photographer and narrator of places, each month he selects a single image and accompanies it with a personal reading shaped by observation, memory and attention to place. Family's Notes is the editorial journal of FA Travel, a MICE and luxury travel house based in Cagliari, Sardinia.