My Malta

This trip to Malta was actually my second trip there, so I knew what to expect from the island to a certain degree. However, it was back in 2015, which was well before I had gotten into photography. At that time I didn't even own a camera and quickly bought some Samsung compact camera to go to Malta. This time round I knew that I could take half decent pictures with my Fujifilm X-S10 and the sparce knowledge that I have now.

Again, the same as when I went to Rhodes (see that blog here), the setup I have with my Fujifilm X-S10 is the Fuji 16-80mm F4 lens (24-120mm Full frame equiv).  This still rarely comes off my camera and took the majority of the photos for this trip. This time round though I have added the Sigma 10-18mm F2.8. I knew I would be going into some places like cathedrals, palaces etc. So I wanted something wide enough that I didn't have to composite multiple pictures together. The Fuji X-S10 and these two lenses fit into the same small bag I took to Rhodes, so super convenient for travel. Also I used my Fujifilm Pro 500H preset I created as a base for editing my photos on this trip, as it gave a nice warmth to the type of local limestone that the vast majority of buildings are constructed from.

I wanted to get a good mix of wides landscapes, street views, and some fairly abstract photos. Some of the places you will see here are Upper Barrakka and Lower Barrakka gardens and St Elmos fort - all three in Valletta, Gozo salt pans, Pallazzo Parisio, Mosta Rotunda, Marsaxlokk and views of Valetta from Sliema and Ta'Xbiex. The street pictures are a mix of streets of Valetta, Rabat, Marsaxlokk and Birgu.

Personally I am quite happy with the pictures I have taken after taking an extended period away from photography after a particularly difficult year, due to the passing of my mother. Some people find using creative arts such as photography for instance as an escape which helps with their mental health and depression. I however have found that I actively cannot be creative and do not want to even do photography when I am struggling with mental health. I know that if I cannot create images that are up to my normal standards that I don't want to produce rubbish images. I did take another trip to the Cotswolds a couple of months ago, which I posted a couple of images onto my Instagram but I wasn't exactly feeling enthused about taking photos then. This trip did get me back into my stride a little and hopefully will be the catalyst I needed to create more images. Next step is to get back into photographing people again, of which I have a few projects backlogged from earlier in the year.

Thanks for reading, see you again.