Gozo Photography – Night shots at festas
Xaghra (means wilderness in Maltese) is a village in the central north east of Gozo, Malta and is famous worldwide for the 5,600 year old Ggantija Temples. The parish church in Xaghra was built between 1815 and 1878 on the site of a previous church, and gained basilica status in 1967. The Gozo diocese website has a short history of the parish.
Looking East, this night shot was taken in the main square well after sunset during the Xaghra festa in early September. The ideal time would have been just after sunset to give a bluey / black sky, but the timings of the processions do not always fit in with the best photographic ideas and techniques 
The image was taken with a 17mm lens, handheld at 1/2oth second at f4. You can see the key-stoning effect as the lens was tilted up to capture the whole building. The newer versions of lightroom could adjust this, but I like the way the angle on the building gives the image a more dynamic feel.
Hand held images at these slow shutter speeds and higher ISO’s are not great shots to print to a large size. However they do capture the atmosphere of the festa, and even small compact cameras are now capable of processing most of the noise from the image.
Gozo Photography – The Basilica Xaghra: post processing
Only small adjustments were needed post process in Adobe Lightroom. Slight noise adjustment as the image was shot at ISO 800, increased clarity and vibrance, and a stretch of the black point and exposure sliders. The image was then exported full size to my stock photography Gozo Above gallery, and a smaller version included on the blog post.
More information on Gozo Photography sites
Looking for more information on Gozo towns and villages?
The Gozo Tourist Authority has a very informative page to help you with ideas for Gozo Photography
