ColorGrinder’s Malta Pages

Over the last year or so, I have been seeing increasing numbers of HDR (High Dynamic Range) images on blogs and photo sharing sites. HDR images are made by using special software to  merging several  differently exposed images together into a single image. On a trip to Malta this summer I decided to try HDR photography and I am going to share some of the resulting pictures with you here.

A single camera exposure is usually made to show good detail in the main subject regardless of whether the highlights burn and the shadow areas block up. We don’t have any other option but to expose for the area of the scene that we are most interested in.  In real life we have the luxury of being able to widen our pupils to peer into shadows or to screw up our eyes to look at brighter parts of the scene. HDR photography mimics this real life behavior by taking separate images to capture shadow, mid tone and highlight detail before combining them into a single image. I used Photomatix software to do the clever stuff. Do some Googling to find out more about the technique. In the meantime, here are some of the images that I took.   

Starting near Mgarr, the first shot is of the Ta Hagrat Neolithic temples. They are smaller than the more famous sites at Hagar Qim, Mnajdra, Ggantija & Tarxien but are definitely worth a visit if you are in the area. They are only open to the one day a week (I think) but you can get a reasonable shot of them through the fence. Whilst you are in Mgarr, take a look at the ‘egg church’ with it’s oval dome and the bomb shelter underneath the ‘Il Barri’ restaurant.

The next shot is one of Malta’s trademark dghajsas. Literally translated dghajsa means boat in Maltese but it usually refers to the traditional narrow rowing boats that can still be seen in the Grand Harbour. Dghajsa’s are rowed standing up with the oarsman(men) facing the direction of travel. On the 31st of March each year (Freedom Day), a regatta is held with boats from the Three Cities and other towns competing  against each other. This boat was photographed in Dockyard Creek as the the limestone buildings turned gold in the setting sun         

 

One of the problems with combining several photos together is that you have to keep the camera AND the subject still. A tripod is very useful but not always essential as most software packages try to align the images. In this shot, taking in the evening in Kalkara, the water was calm but not 100% still so the boats did move a little between shots. I had to tidy it up a little in Photoshop to remove blurred edges and the like.

 

The sun had just disappeared over the hill behind Mgarr church when I took this picture from the deck of the Gozo ferry. I didn’t have my tripod handy but was able to balance the camera on one of the ships deck rails.

 

The moment that the rising sun appears as a tiny speck above the waves by Fort Ricasoli. I should probably have waited a few minutes until the sun was more prominent in the sky.

 

This tiny chapel and cemetary stands close to the entrance to the Mediterranean Film Studios. The remains of Cholera victims from nearby Kalkara were interred here. Nowadays it stands mostly forgotton between Fort Ricasoli and Fort Rinella (home of the Armstrong 100 ton gun).

As Europe tore itself apart during the second world war, Malta nudged it’s way into the record books as the most heavilly bombed place on earth. More bombs rained down on Malta in April 1942 alone that on London during the blitz. In that month 6700 tons of bombs rained down on the island. By comparison, approximately 500 tons of high explosive are thought to have fallen in the devastating Coventry blitz of 1940.

To avoid this hell, the people of Malta spent a large part of their life underground in an elaborate network of shelters. Some of which can be visited today.

Mgarr Shelter

In the square in front of Mgarr’s impressive parish church is the “Il-Barri” restaurant. It has an excellent reputation for it’s traditional Maltese rabbit dishes but I had come to see the air raid shelter that is accessed through the back of the restaurant.  I paid a modest 3 euro and was asked to wait a few minutes whilst the lights were switched on in the shelter. Then I was taken downstairs and was shown a newsreel film of Malta’s wartime privations. When the film was over we (me and one of the girls from the restaurant – I was the only visitor) passed through a door into the shelter itself. I was completely taken aback at the scale of what I saw.

The tunnel extends more than 200 metres underneath the center of Mgarr and would have had multiple entrances (nine if I remember correctly). The tunnel twists and turns and there are recreations of first aid posts, family rooms and school classrooms in little rooms off the main tunnel. I asked my guide whether she was from Mgarr. She was – her grandmother had given birth to one of her children here in this dark damp place.

Malta at War Museum

 Another shelter that is open to the public can be found at the ‘Malta at War Museum’ close to the Couvre’ Porte gate in Vittoriosa. It is maintained by ‘ Wirtartna’, Malta’s Heritage Trust and when I visited, was staffed by two history students dressed in period military uniforms. After donning hairnets and safety helmets, we were lead underground through the gas proof (covered by a wet sack), blast proof (reinforced by a concrete lintel) door.

This shelter was one of about ninety under the city of Vittoriosa alone. Goodness knows what state the rest of them are in but the Couvre Porte shelter is in pretty good shape. Residents would have beed issued with a pass indicating which shelter they were to go to in the event of a raid. Of course, people were frequently in ‘the wrong place’ when an air raid started and they would be accomodated in the closest shelter. If it was full, they would make a dash to alternative an so on until space was found for them.

The steep set of stairs leads from the museum entrance past an infirmary area and into the main accommodation area of the shelter. In this network of dark, damp, smelly passages, hundreds of people would wait for hours on end until the raids finished. Today, the tunnels are lit by electric lamps but during the war there were no such luxuries. In niches cut into the rock, makeshift lamps burned olive oil and gave off a dim and smoky light. It must have smelled like a chip shop!

Families could get a little bit of privacy by renting a tiny room off one of the main passages. The only catch is that they had to dig the room themselves out of the solid rock! Limestone is quite soft as rock goes but it must still have been quite an effort working for hours on end with a pick axe in those airless conditions.  My dad remembers digging a room with his father in their shelter in the village of Tarxien. 

At intervals in the Couvre Porte shelter there were signs advising the shelter dwellers…

• Don’t commit nuisances
• Don’t smoke
• Don’t spit

I would have thought that both smoking and spitting would have been consideres nuisances and that the first line would have been sufficient, even in the chaos of wartime Malta. Were the good people of Vittoriosa such heavy smokers and flambouyant spitters that these misdemeanors had to be called out separately? 

Talking of nuisances, image several hundred people gathered in one place for several hours with terrifying things happening all around them. The toilets would have been in quite some demand. The facilities in the shelter were rudimentary but adequate. A small room, curtained off from the main tunnel contained two wooden lavatories opposite each other. One of the less enviable jobs of the shelter officials was to empty the toilets after each raid.

 

Comino is the small island in the channel between Malta and Gozo. It has one solitary hotel, no roads to speak of, and probably the  most beautiful bathing beach in all of Malta. Comino’s famous Blue Lagoon, seen here from the cabin of a tiny microlight aircraft, attracts hundreds of day visitors.

Getting to the Blue Lagoon inevitably involves a 20 minute trip in a small boat. If you are coming from Malta you will find a number of operators offering trips from the Ċirkewwa ferry terminal and from the jetty opposite the Riviera Resort Hotel.  On the other side of the Gozo channel, you will find boats leaving from Mgarr harbour. Just follow the signs.

Make a day of it and get an early start, especially if your visit is in the high season. It can get pretty crowded. Reserve couple of square meters to dump your belongings (nothing valuable please) and jump into the amazing crystal clear waters of the lagoon.

You can spend hours paddling around the shallower parts of the bay, watching the shoals of tiny fish flicker and flash amongst the rocks. My tip for the more adventurous of you is to cross the lagoon to the islet of Cominotto and swim through the tunnel (right in the middle of the picture above) out to the open sea. Here is a short UNDERWATER video of my kids snorkelling and splashing their way around the lagoon:

The tunnel is dark and cold compared to the tepid waters of the lagoon. Swim through slowly and carefully and as you reach the end you will emerge into a very deep, crystal clear bay. If you are snorkelling, you will see much larger fish many metres below. The water will have much more of a ‘swell’ than in the sheltered waters on the other side of Cominotto. No problem if you are a confident swimmer but remember, you won’t be able to climb out of the water on the south side of Cominotto as the rocks are too steep. You will either have to return through the tunnel or swim around the islet.

Eventually you will have had your fill of snorkelling and sun-bathing and it will be time to head back to the mainland. With any luck the skipper of your boat will take the scenic route back to Malta stopping of at some of the tiny inlets and sea caves that pepper the rocky coast of Comino. Keep your camera at the ready. 

And finally, here is the map…..

Map