Mary in the Corner

Marsa, Malta

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." Galileo Galilei

This is one of those pictures that you will only understand if you are coming from a Catholic freak country. 

For all those who are not (I envy you), I will try my best to explain what you see here.

This picture was shot in Malta at a location called Marsa. Marsa is certainly not the most sought after place in Malta and definitely not the place to be at at any time. Besides a power plant that's right in the center of houses (which is creating black dust all over the country), Marsa is also infested with illegal immigrants coming from all parts of Africa. Not exactly a safe neighborhood but in the morning it is safe enough to go down there and shoot a couple of interesting pictures.

In the corner, in this picture, we see a statue of Holy Mary. These sights are very common in Malta...so common that us locals tend to not see them. It's hilarious though when sometimes you are riding with a religious freak and he/she makes the sign of the cross in front of every religious statue they see. Experience it once and you will never be the same again.

What baffles me here is the state of the houses. You'd expect them to fall any minute and frankly I am surprised they haven't yet. Seriously how can you still be a believer if you spend your life living in a run down block with a Holy Mary statue in the corner? These people either have divine faith or they simply don't know any better. 

To see all the details in the picture (for example an A/C in the balcony next to Holy Mary) please full view the picture.

This black and white photograph was captured on my iPhone using the Hipstamatic app. Some minor editing was done in PS CS4. Settings for Hipstamatic were BlacKeys B&W/Lucifer IV