San Cristoforo Procession

Celebrations for St Christopher the Patron Saint of Barga which started today with the “San Cristoforo d’oro” awards ceremony, continued this evening to its climax with a long torchlight procession through the streets of Barga up to the Duomo.

Thousands of people lined the streets of Barga watched the procession led by Arcivescovo Mons. Mario Conti, The Bishop of Glasgow as it slowly wound its way through the streets of Barga Giardino and then up into Barga Vecchia for the final destination – the blessing of San Cristoforo in the Duomo.

[View with PicLens]

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The banners and mayors of most of the comunes in Garfaganana and Mediavalle were in the procession along with representatives from Pisa and Florence.

Maybe a word should be said about the accompanying images from the barganews award winning photographer O’Connor

He said that he wanted to capture as near as possible the light that this procession is seen by. It starts in Sacro Cuore just as the sun is going down behind La Pania . As the procession proceeds along the main road up into Barga Giardino, the darkness is rapidly approaching and by the time the long line of marching people finally get up to the Duomo, it is pitch black.

It was the mixture of the darkness and the medieval costumes that somehow, according to him,  makes flash photography an intruder into this situation. He wanted to make images using just the available light which by definition means that many of his images tonight are very dark.

The other thought that he had in his mind was to look for and photograph faces in the procession that could have been faces from medieval times. He was specifically looking for, as he called it “non modern faces” – faces that you might expect to find in paintings from that period.

Did he succeed in either endeavour ?

Hit the comment box below this article and let us know.

Click on the link below to hear the voice of the Mayor of Barga – Marco Bonini reading the prayer for  St Christopher in the Duomo this evening

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Images from previous years ; 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2005 | 2007 |  2008 |

• Presentation of book on the story of the Duomo