Last night I went down into downtown Milan to take a few photographs of the city in all it’s Christmas 2010 glory. It was a chilly night, by seeing as I love night photography, the cold did not worry me too much. I eventually got to bed at around four in the morning, but I’m happy with the results.
Here are four of the photographs of Milan I took.
As you will note, Milan was virtually empty at the time of night I was pointing my tripod supported camera at it. For the photographically curious the camera used was a Canon EOS 40d which was fitted with my Tokina 12-24mm f 4.0 lens for most of the time – I’m a great fan of wide angle photography. One of the shots was taken with a Canon 50mm f1.4 lens which I started the photo session with. The wide angle Tokina, one of my favourite lenses, soon took its place. Images were shot in RAW and processed using the DxO Optics Pro digital image processing software – which I like a lot.
On to the photos:
First of all using the Canon 50mm (80mm effectively on my DSLR), the tower of Milan’s Castello castle adorned in Christmas lights. It looks subtly spectacular in the flesh.


Stop reading, start speaking
Stop translating in your head and start speaking Italian for real with the only audio course that prompt you to speak.
Here is another photograph of Milan’s Christmas light adorned castle, only this time you can see more of the facade:

Here is the silent centre of Milan, with the Duomo and the Tiffany and Co Christmas tree. It’s not often that one sees Milan’s centre so empty!

And finally, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II with the spectacular blue Christmas lights lining this elegant shopping arcade’s central dome. It is quite a sight!

Comments, questions, and criticism more than welcome.
I have more images from my Christmas photography session and some will find their way onto Flickr, as well as ItalyChronicles.com’s Zazzle shop. I’m thinking about turning these and some of the other photographs into prints, so these images and any others which might appear will be subject to copyright and not my usual Creative Commons licencing.
Now, when are you coming to Milan? And note that Milan is not considered as one of Italy’s most beautiful cities, even if it is pretty darn visually stunning.