ITALIANS OF WOLLONGONG: May 2023

If there is one business that stands out as being remembered by the many Italians in the area, it is Photo Roma. Photo Roma were so influential for photographing many Italian celebrations and ceremonies. Italian migrant workers were often snap shot. Photo Roma with their association to the local Catholic associations and other Italian businesses, who hired Photo Roma to captured them in images, were embraced by the community and honoured for the many memories that were created. With both founding members no longer with us I was fortunate to speak with Liliane (Bruno`s wife) and son Mark Ballesi and Cesira (Ferruccio`s wife) and son Robert Martina.

Bruno Ballesi was 25 years old and working as photographer in Rome, Italy. He had been working for 10 years, after finishing school and doing his photography training.

His best friend Ferruccio Martina was living in Australia and had left Italy three years before, arriving in Australia on March 31st, 1952, aboard the Hellenic Prince. Ferruccio was living at the Unanderra Hostel and was working at the Port Kembla Steel Works.

Ferruccio and Bruno kept in touch regularly and Ferruccio convinced Bruno to come to Australia. He arrived on November 10, 1955 aboard the ship Surriento. Bruno was able to get a job at the Port Kembla Steel Works and was living at Cringlia.

Bruno would often come around to the hostel to visit Ferruccio and he knew some of the men who stayed there. One of them was Luciano Palmini. The three of them became friends.

In 1957, Bruno and Ferruccio changed addresses and boarded in a half house apartment in Crown Street, Wollongong, where they set up a dark room in the garage. The three friends commenced a small business doing photography. After a short while Luciano left and it was just Bruno and Ferruccio running the business. Both of them were still working day jobs whilst doing the photography on the side. In the same year Bruno was invited to a picnic at Seven Mile Beach, where he met Liliane. Two years later they were married. They then relocated to a bigger place in Cliff Road, and Ferruccio came with them. They set up a dark room in the house, actually it was in Ferruccio`s bedroom. They ran the photography business from the house as well. By this stage they had commenced doing Italian weddings on the weekends. Bruno and Ferruccio quit their day jobs to do photography full time.

In 1960 they rented their first studio. It was an Art Deco apartment above a shop at 135 Crown Street, Wollongong. The entrance was via a stairwell off Pig Alley. The space had a dark room, office and photo studio. Their work expanded and they also did passport photos and portraits. The main studio area, where the portraits and other formal photos were taken, faced Crown Street. The prints were washed in the bathtub which had a marvellous ceramic lion’s head for the water spout. All their work was done in black and white. Colour was not yet available.

It was now 1961 and Ferruccio had married. Together with his wife Cesira along with Bruno and Liliane they purchased a home at 87 Mt Keira Road. Even though they were working now in their own studio they would often help out in the community, at picnic days and family festivals.

They were becoming increasingly busy, so in 1966, they opened a second studio at Warrawong, above the Lake Market Chambers, facing King Street. Bruno was now running Warrawong and Ferruccio was running the Wollongong studio. They also expanded their business and were doing videos using super 8 camera. Mostly you would find them together at the weddings with Ferruccio shooting the video and Bruno taking the photos. Though there were times when each of them would be doing a separate wedding each, because of the demand, they had to hire other staff.

In relation to the Italian weddings, Photo Roma were often helping out the bride and groom in the way of invitations ect, so they introduced this also into his business. Ordering the printing of wedding invitations ect, was done by a printer called Mr Parkes. They were also doing industrial photography for Ept and Transfield, two Italian construction companies, school photos and photo restoration. When Bruno was working in Italy he learnt how to restore photos and introduced this into his business and both he and Ferruccio would restore the photos.

By the late sixties colour photos had become available. This changed the operation of the photo studio itself. For wedding or large gathering photos such as christenings and confirmations ect, the addition of colour photos took away the processing from the dark room. Although, they still used the dark room for copying and restoring old photos as well as making new prints from old negatives in the archive, if customers lost or damaged photos that Photo Roma had taken in the past. Passport photos were still being printed in black and white also, even when colour was introduced. As a result the dark room was still in use up until the time they retired.

Because of Photo Roma’s association with the local Catholic organisations, you would often find Ferruccio singing with the Sacred Heart Church choir, in Wollongong. The Italian Centre, that was run by the Scalabrini Brothers, ran a dance on a Sunday night where Ferruccio would often sing as well. Ferruccio had a lovely voice and his brother Gino was a singer back in Italy, often singing for the local radio station. Ferruccio also sang with the bands from Gavino`s and Don Camillo`s restaurants.

As I spoke with Robert Martina, he told me how he would sometimes help his father with his equipment when Ferruccio was doing a wedding on his own. The wedding reception venue always offered the camera man and/or photographer a meal. Often people would request for Ferruccio to sing at the end of the night, so Robert would often cover the plate of Ferruccio`s dinner, otherwise the wait staff would take the plate away. Ferruccio had many a cold dinner, but always enjoyed singing for the crowd. Robert said that as a child he would often hear his father singing along with the record player at home and never realised until later just how good of a singer he was. Robert also mentioned that if Ferruccio was doing a wedding on his own, he would often hire a local photographer named Ken to help taking the photos whilst Ferruccio would take the video footage. Robert took photography as an elective in High School and it became his hobby. He still dabbles in it sometimes. Robert also explained how his mother Cesira would do a lot of the administration work at home, once Ferruccio was running the Wollongong studio.

Speaking with Mark Ballesi he explained about the process of ordering wedding photos. In the early years, once a wedding was photographed, Photo Roma made small images/negatives on a paper/story board. Each image would be individually numbered. People would order photos from the proofs and usually within a week the photos would be ready. He also spoke about how his mother was a huge help in the business too. Many times she would help with the processing of the photos at home. Later she would work along side Bruno in the studio.

In 1977, with both of the studios doing well, the Ballesi family purchased a chicken shop at Warilla Grove, which was about 15 minutes drive from the Warrawong photo studio. The shop was started from scratch as a joint business venture between the Pallone and Ballesi families. The families became well acquainted with each other as they both had businesses in the Warrawong shopping centre. Eddie Pallone had a Barbershop in the centre for many years and the two families became quite close. Liliane Ballesi and Linda Pallone ran the chicken shop with Liliane`s daughter Christine with son Mark working Thursday, Saturday and Monday’s. There were 7 staff in total.

After almost 2 years they sold the chicken shop. They were out celebrating the sale of the shop at a staff dinner at Don Camillo`s restaurant, when Bruno had received a call that Ferruccio had passed away. It was such a shock. Bruno had lost his best friend who was like a brother and it affected everybody. On 27th October, 1979, Ferruccio Martina passed away. He was only 54 years old.

With now only Bruno at the helm, and with the Warrawong studio getting busier, Bruno along with son Mark, floated between the two studios for work. Within 12 months Bruno closed the Wollongong studio and just focused on Warrawong.

There were a lot of migrants in Warrawong and not only was he busy with Italian weddings, he was doing a lot of Spanish and Portuguese weddings as well.

In 1985, the shopping complex at Warrawong had been taken over and Photo Roma made the decision to leave and moved upstairs at 256 Cowper Street, that was basically across the road. The Cowper Street studio was a bigger space than King Street.

As the years moved on, a lot of changes were taking place in the industry, due to technology. After woking for approximately 15 years without Ferruccio, around the mid 1990`s, Bruno made the decision to retire from the photography business. He tried to sell his business, but couldn’t find anyone keen. He managed to sell some of his equipment locally.

All through his photography years, Bruno was doing community work, for Italian organisations and clubs, ect. He participated in many events and was very well known in the Italian community. One only had to think of the many Italian weddings in the Wollongong area and Photo Roma was a part of them. I remember so many weddings, especially at Bruno`s Reception Centre, at Tarrawanna, and Photo Roma was always there.

I don’t think one can put a price on all the incredible photography that Photo Roma did over time, in the Wollongong/Illawarra area for the Italian community. Mark Ballesi told me that Bruno had kept every single negative from the very first one, beginning from the late 1950`s until retirement. This is unheard of, when the law required that negatives only be kept for five years. It would come to be of great value as people who wanted old photos, repeat customers or people wanting photos from a past gathering, were able to access them through Bruno`s archive of negatives.

Bruno did a lot of community work free of charge after he retired. He was a founding committee member of the Marco Polo Nursing Home. On August 17th, 2018, Bruno Ballesi passed away. He was 87 years old and remembered as the man behind Photo Roma Studio. Most Italians in Wollongong remember who he was and the invaluable contribution that Photo Roma made to the community.

Ferruccio sent this photo to Bruno with a note on the back, telling him that they will see him at the port with Luciano and to show him the car so he could recognise them.