Istanbul
SHOT WITH THE FUJIFILM X-PRO3, XF27 F2.8, XF18-55 F2.8
We’ve been home a month now. Plenty of time… maybe too much time actually, between the trip and and being settled back to life in Toronto and writing this.
Istanbul was memorable. I’d say it was one of my favorite trips. It had a bit of everything; wonderful, warm people, delicious and flavourful food, a taste of at least two, maybe three seasons (from snow, to spring) and a sense of adventure that comes from being just a little out of one’s comfort zone.
Why Istanbul? It’s funny, when Alice and I are sharing (debating) cities we’d like to visit over the Christmas holidays a few cities came up. Some were too hot, or overcrowded and some were too cold (I’m not going to a place that’s actually colder than Toronto… although some days Istanbul was alarmingly close). Istanbul seemed to fit the bill for us, a little bit of an adventure but maybe (hopefully) not too much, a different culture and food. Sure, I’d always wanted to visit and this seemed like as good a time as any. Before I knew it, the flights were booked and that was that.
What did we see? Well, there were too many places and sites for this post and as much as I try as a photographer to “capture a moment”, the truth is that a lot of site seeing shots are nothing special to look at. Most of them are probably on my iPhone where they will stay for a very long time.
Istanbul is nothing if not a city of contrasts. The modern and the ancient. The very poor and the very rich. The hungry and the well fed. The smokers (just about all of the men) and the non-smokers (most of the women and children). The secular and the non secular.
It’s hard to imagine a city that is so overrun by shops selling decadent sweets, from baklava to Turkish delight. I didn’t get a handle if this was all for the tourists or a split with locals, but my gosh, the sweets were everywhere… a dentist and an Ozempic salesperson’s dream. Beside the assault on your taste buds and stomach, the visual beauty was really something to behold. The sweets are all geometrically lined up to show off their perfect shape and glistening “come hither” appeal. To say it was hard to resist is an understatement.
Istanbul is also a city of artisans. Whether it’s the guy in the window making delicious stuffed flatbread (Gozleme) or “dough with meat” (Lahmacun), the gorgeous ceramic shops or the hand made carpets hanging in the windows, Istanbul thrives on it’s traditional crafts. For a tourist, it’s as much eye candy as the actual eye candy.
Of course we played tourist and visited the Hagia Sophia Mosque, the Blue Mosque as we as the Grand Bazaar and the Basilica Cistern. The real highlight of Istanbul though was taking the ferries and getting lost in the streets that didn’t seem to end with fascinating history and neighbourhoods. The Ara Guler Museum was also a highlight with the Robert Capa photography exhibit. I’d say it was particularly well done.
So that was it. Eleven days, more km’s walked than I thought possible. We were strengthened by the never ending hill climbing and cat watching (yes, they are everywhere). There was so much to see, so much to experience and so much to eat. Turkey in the summer may be next.
RANDOM-ISH OCTOBER PICS
SHOT WITH THE FUJIFILM X-PRO3, XF35 F1.4, XF27 F2.8
Without sounding too self absorbed… I’m making a little bit of an effort to post more on this blog, if not for my own good, then at least for the sake of trying to get my money’s worth from my yearly Squarespace subscription. Yeah, the guilt is real.
Picking up the camera continues to be a bit of daily mental wrestling match, something which exists completely in my head. “Yes, pick up the camera. No the lights no good, forget about it”. That sort of thing. By the way, as I type this at 4:50 pm, the sky has just turned the most incredible blue color with the clouds varying shades of grey/blue and snow white. Too bad I’m typing this or I’d go pick up my camera ;-)
There are many areas in my life that I can say I have the most incredible amount of discipline. Funny, because I was a completely lazy kid. Somehow I figured out that in order to be good at something you need to “wash and repeat”. Great, but in my brain there are so many tired reasons for leaving the camera at home or on the shelf.
Oh and did I forget to mention for about a month my one and only camera was at Fujifilm getting the ribbon for the LCD replaced. I know, I still had my iPhone.
So here we are, it’s early November and I’m digging through some of my images from the fall. They were created when I was winning some mental battles and picked up the camera. It’s really not all that hard. One foot in front of the other, wash & repeat.
another angle
SHOT WITH THE FUJIFILM X-PRO3, XF35 F1.4
The lesson I keep needing to relearn is to just let go… let my mind and my camera do its thing. You can never be sure if what the camera will capture will be complete rubbish or if it will be something with some potential.
A couple of weeks back Alice and I went to our favourite local pizza joint… Alice did the driving. It was that time of daylight that was just holding on, dusk was in full momentary flight. 10 minutes later and neither of the first two images would have been possible.
In truth, I had left my camera on manual mode from some recent experimentation and neither of the first images are anywhere near in focus. And maybe that’s why I find them so interesting. So yes, a happy mistake. On this day I’d like to think I was channeling my inner Saul Leiter, a photographer who’s black and white and color work I greatly admire.
The last two images were taken inside North of Brooklyn pizza on Geary Ave. By then, I figured out my earlier “mistake” but like the first two images, on this day I was inspired by the negative space. And of course all of these shots are done in 1:1 format, another current obsession. I’m not sure why but I find I can imagine the images with more clarity when I get rid of the clutter of a wider aspect ratio.
On this day, at this hour, I allowed my brain to look at the world from another angle. I’m very grateful that I did.
