Easter is of course huge for Italy’s Catholic population. In Lanciano, where we have been staying for the past week or so, Easter is a week long affair filled with socializing, shared meals, picnics, and religious processions through the streets, replete with religious artifacts, costumes and marching bands.
On Thursday night before the Easter weekend, the Churches open their doors to display “Sepulchre,” or artistic displays of Christ coming off the cross. Thursday night also kicked off a weekend of processions with a hooded march through the old districts of the city. The mood was sombre, if not a little eery, with a marching band droning in a minor key.
These shots were from that night. The interior shots were from a particularly well-done Sepulchre, and the rest are of the hooded procession.
For a small donation, the faithful can light a candle.
Folks exiting the church. I swear they had a fog machine in there.
One particularly penitent man has the honour of bearing a large wooden cross.
We ran a little wildly through the streets in order to see the procession pass a few more times. This was taken from the CCI school balcony.
The marching band followed behind.
As the procession snakes its way through the narrow streets, it picks up followers.
More of the silent followers.
After the procession, the main piazza was thronged with Liancanese visiting with each other. This was about midnight local time.
I agree. Those shots look amazing. Some info on how they were snapped would be a great lesson.
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Chris Reply:
April 6th, 2010 at 7:09 am
All were shot with a Canon 5D. Lenses: 24L, 50mm 1.8, and a couple with the 135L. ISO was generally 3200, although a few might have been 1600. Apertures were 2.5 on average, although a few were wider than that, and shutter speeds were in the 1/50 to 1/60 range. Almost all were manual focused using an E-es focusing screen. The auto focus hunts badly in low light, and isn’t all that accurate anyway. I think the trick here is to not be afraid of the dark. If you try to expose to make the whole scene bright, you’ll be pushing your exposures way too much to get a clean, steady shot. If you expose for the highlights and let the dark places be dark, you’ll have better results. Of course, your on-camera light meter is unlikely to tell you how to do this, so you need to trust your gut and don’t be afraid of “underexposing.” Hope that helps.
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Agreed, great photos. Definitely got a creepy-ritualistic, almost Goebbels-like feel to it.
Give us some deets on how you took them / exif info. Nice use of available light while still keeping a useable DOF. Not very grainy either (waaayyyy better than my camera at least).
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Wow, these are some breathtaking images! I just in awe.
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