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Posts Tagged: Travels with a Rangefinder
Chapter Forty One: Life in Istanbul, October 2014
On July 3, 2015 by Simon Leech With 0 Comments
- Travel
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.
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Chapter Thirty-Seven: Gabor Dancing at the Royal Palace, Ubud: July 2014
On November 23, 2014 by Simon Leech With 0 Comments
- Travel
Gabor dancing is typically a presentation or welcoming dance, and is demonstrated every evening at the Royal Palace in Ubud, Bali. During the day there are teams of ticket sellers competing to get you to buy a ticket for one of the evening performances that take place in and around Ubud. Since we were staying close by to Ubud centre, we chose to visit the performance at the Royal Palace opposite the market.
We arrived at the Palace early and were lucky to get seats in the front row of the seated area. This put us at a distance of around 5 metres from the stage, so it was an ideal opportunity to use the Elmarit 90mm lens that I had purchased just before our trip. Most of the images in this post were shot at either f/2.8, f/3.4, or f/4, and using ISOs ranging from ISO800 to ISO1250 (which I have found to be the highest safe colour setting on the Leica M-E).
The dancers are typically young ladies in the role of the princesses, young children to play the deer, and an older man to play the role of the evil King. The dancers depict the story of Sita, sent into exile, and Rahwana, the evil king, who is enchanted by the beauty of Sita, and sets out to capture her. The role play is very dramatic, and involves dancing and fighting. The rest of the story can be found elsewhere, such as here, so I will just use this post to display some of the images I made.
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