Semana Santa Málaga 2013 - In Photos:

Roaming the streets of Malaga with a camera during Easter week...

Another April and another Semana Santa in Malaga is over. For those not familiar with Semana Santa, well, for the non-Malagueños reading this it translates as Saints Week and is better known as Easter week in the Western World. It is something that you definitely need to put on your list of things to do and places to visit. Malaga city turns into something that really needs to be seen to be believed. Think the square in the old town in Marrakech on a city wide scale, it is nothing short of amazing. Los Malagueños take to the streets in their droves cheering on the die-hard Portadores, the amazing Nazarenos and the beautiful Mantillas. Literally every square inch of real estate on any of the procession routes is taken and you are sure to find lines of people 10 and 15 deep lining the routes of the more famous processions. If you plant yourself near the top of Calle Larios you will be sure to see Antonio Banderas up on the ramparts of the famous Hotel Larios beside the Plaza de Constitución. In fact, Antonio wouldn’t miss being in his home city for love nor money for Semana Santa. If it’s good enough for Antonio, then it is good enough for me! Olé, olé y olé!

Thankfully this year was better in terms of weather than last, the weather fairies decided to be good after the washout of the year before, though in saying that, Seville were not as lucky. In Málaga only a few processions were cancelled or rerouted. The big ones such as “El Cautivo”, “Cena”, “Mena”, “Esperanza” and “Estudiantes” all went out which was fantastic for the people of Málaga. Since each individual procession has so much history and tradition behind it, a cancellation could be considered an apocalyptic event for some.

I ventured out with the camera five of the six nights though some nights were less successful than others. As you end up on your feet for a good six or seven hours you need to ration what gear you bring with you in terms of cameras and lenses. I ended up mixing it up going for the full coverage of 24-70 and 70-200 a couple of the nights and then say mixing between the 105mm f/2.8 macro and the 85mm f/1.4 for others. My setup was reasonably simple, D700 with one lens and SB-910 on one shoulder and then the D800 with the other lens and SB-910 on the other shoulder. It does end up hurting the shoulders after a few hours but it minimises lens changes and works out more efficient as you have a camera ready to suit all scenes almost always. Using a harness makes the load more tolerable.

Since it is night time you are looking at big ISO numbers and wide apertures to ensure a sufficiently fast shutter speed to freeze the action. In a lot of cases the photos were shot using available light only as there was no surface available for bouncing the flash. When I did get the opportunity to bounce the flash I did, though only to lift the subject lighting. Only on rare occasions did I use direct balanced fill flash to lift the shadows though I dialled the FEC right down to give the photo a more available light feel. As things were constantly changing the only option you have is to use TTL Flash and this worked out really well with the flash metering of both D700 and D800 combined with the power and super quick recycling of the SB-910 units. But even bouncing the flash I needed to get enough ambient light recorded to capture the atmosphere. Kill the atmosphere and you kill the photo. In some of the darker locations such as Carreteria I ended up using ISO 6400 combined with f/2.8 on the zoom lenses. All photos were shot in manual exposure mode.

Night time events like this really put your gear and your technique to the test, constantly changing lighting conditions, bustling crowds and constantly being pushed along make it tough to get the perfect composition so in a lot of cases you need to compromise but it is a great way to try out new stuff. My two nuggets of wisdom learned were 1) the D800 leaves the D700 for dead in terms of real world ISO performance so I think I need to trade up to a second D800 body and 2) the 70-200 f/2.8 at 200mm wide open is just glorious in terms of sharpness and bokeh. On a full frame camera I do believe it is the most accomplished lens out there and in terms of appealing bokeh, it is just unbeatable.

I’ve included a small number of images below and although they are my personal favorites there are so many more that probably do a better job of capturing the buzz of the city and the wonderful people of Málaga. To see the full collection you can take a look at them in their original full-resolution form so you can check them out in much more detail. The gallery is open to all but for those visiting can you respect copyright. I have not added watermarks because, personally, I hate them. So if you want to share photos, can you link them back to this page. If you want to use any of the full resolution images then drop me a mail with the details and we'll get back to you. The full resolution image gallery can be reached here. I hope you enjoy them.

I also would like to identify as many of the people in the photos as possible so I can get the photos to them so if you know any of the people in the photos then it would be great if you could pass the info on to them. I am sure the photos will mean a lot more to them than they do to me. Also, if you would like any of the images for other reasons then feel free to get in touch. Until next year!

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