Posts Tagged: Leica User Forum
Chapter Forty One: Life in Istanbul, October 2014
It’s been a while since my previous post looking at people sitting down in Istanbul. Here are some more photos from the same trip, looking at some of the stuff the locals get up to on a daily basis.
Selling pomegranate juice. Costs around a Euro, but freshly squeezed and tastes good, as long as you’re not too worried about the hygiene…..
Washing feet. Essential if you plan on praying in the mosque……
….. and it’s not just because they like to keep the carpet clean
Fishing on the Galata bridge. Literally hundreds of people lined across the bridge trying to catch fish. The Golden Horn is pretty well stocked, so success is almost guaranteed, and you’ll either end up with a tasty meal for later, or you can sell the fish to the restaurants trading below the bridge. The restaurants then serve the fish in a roll (balik-ekmek), which tastes pretty good. Just don’t try the turnip juice, which doesn’t. The Galata bridge is also a good spot to see dolphins, and there were 3 or 4 playing around whilst I was there.
Roasting chestnuts. The Turkish seem to have a fascination for roasting chestnuts, and they’re available all over Istanbul, whether it’s the middle of the day……
… or the middle of the night, together with a tasty cob of corn.
Selling flags. The Turkish flag seems pretty popular and well loved, and this guy was doing a brisk trade each time I walked past him.
Ever wondered where to buy a plastic mannequin? Well look no further…..
In my eyes, pigeon are vermin. Nothing more than rats with wings, noisy and filthy. But they seem pretty popular in Istanbul. Outside the New Mosque it’s even possible to buy a small bag of pigeon feed to make sure they don’t go hungry. The guy selling the feed at the back of the picture had an old analogue SLR hanging in the back of his cabin…..
If you can fit it on the back of a handcart, you’ll be able to find someone somewhere willing to pull it around for you.
This guy was trying his hardest to sell the prayer carpet over his shoulder. Or maybe it was a magic carpet? In any case, it wasn’t very popular with the punters, and he didn’t have any success in selling it when I was there.
All images taken in Istanbul with the Leica M-E and the Summilux 50mm ASPH lens.
Related Images:
Chapter Forty: Sitting down in Istanbul: October 2014
Whilst reviewing my post trip images from a recent trip to Istanbul, I noticed that, at least in terms of the photos I was happy with, Turkish men and women alike seem to have a lot of time to spend sitting down. Whether it’s reading a newspaper, drinking coffee, visiting a mosque, earning money, or just pondering life, they certainly like to rest their feet. Rather than do a ‘normal’ post trip report, I thought for now I would just share some shots of a nation of perchers…..
The story starts in the Grand Bazaar. In the afternoons and at the weekend a bustling market full of bargains to be made, but at 10am on a Friday morning, it’s time to relax…
…and have a cup of turkish coffee (no doubt paying less than the 12 Turkish Lira that I was charged when I attempted to do the same…..)
Of course, if it’s nice weather and you want to top up your tan, where better to sit than outside with a newspaper?
There’s always money to be made selling bird seed to tourists outside the mosque. But not on a Friday. Then it’s hard enough work trying to stay awake whilst the pigeons fend for themselves.
Once inside the mosque walls, it’s worth sitting down again to contemplate the day’s prayer
If you’re not the praying type, there’s bound to be someone who wants to buy some chain. But probably not when everyone else is praying, so until they come out, why not just sit down again and have a rest before the post mosque rush begins?
You can be sure your wife is doing the same somewhere….
…because it’s hard work shopping
For the guy who is busy selling his stuff for ‘free’, a generous friend with a cup of coffee never gets ignored
And finally, security is important. And how better to guard stuff than by sitting down. Whether they’re pigeons….
…or big bags of ‘stuff’.
All photos taken in Istanbul with the Leica M-E Rangefinder, using a combination of the 50mm Summilux ASPH, and the 90mm Elmarit-M during the Leica User Forum One Challenge weekend. Despite what the light hearted fun of this blog post might suggest, there’s a lot that can be achieved by sitting down, even if it is just for a few minutes 🙂
Related Images:
Chapter Eight: Leica User Forum Photo Walk in Antwerp, July 2013
The Leica community has a popular online forum which boasts 5600 active users and 133000 members in total. The forum contains a wealth of information around the Leica product family, and members also organise informal get-togethers, or photo walks, around the world. In July 2013 I joined a group of 10 photographers in Antwerp. We spent the day wandering the streets and chatting cameras, with inevitable breaks for (liquid) refreshments.
Central Station, Antwerp
Door at the Puppet Theatre
Antwerp is a friendly city, and on a summer Saturday is alive with a mixture of tourists discovering what the city has to offer, and locals going about their business. We started off at Central Station, and then meandered through the back streets, finally ending up in the dock area at the MAS, or Museum aan de Stroom.
Camera salesman, Grote markt, Antwerp
Looking at the city of Antwerp from the MAS, Museum aan de Stroom
I spent most of the walk around using the 35mm Summarit lens, but during a cafe stop I switched to the 50mm Summicron to focus on some candids of the rest of the group. I find the Leica very unobtrusive for taking candids, as people don’t seem to notice the camera in the same way as they would do with a larger SLR, and even when they do see the camera, they tend to react in a different way
.
.
.
.
Related Images: