Istanbul- Turkey

Istanbul

I’ve recently had a trip to Istanbul, a vibrant and bustling city with rich culture still flowing in its arteries.

Ever since visiting Andalucía in Spain, I had always been fascinated by Islamic architecture. Here in Yeni Cami, the New Mosque, the beautiful arches and columns support a semi-domed peristyle walkway adorned with crimson mandalas and ribboned patterns. In front, a fortified door with tessellation carved into it glows warmly in the afternoon sun.

Hagia Sophia, completed in 537 AD has seen many lives as a church and now a mosque. The ground floor is once again open for prayers under the backdrop of layers of history hidden by plaster.

Places

One thing I tend to do when I travel is to choose a neighbourhood and walk around it. Balat here is the old Jewish quarter now taken on a different life as a colourful tourist hotspot.

Maiden’s Tower from a calm promenade.

People

My favourite district in Istanbul is Kadıköy, a hip area on the Anatolian side filled with young people, cool shops and good vibes.

Istanbul, being a city of more than 15 million people, rightly has many sides to it. The face the city takes most commonly is the cultural and geographic middleman, embodied by the series of bazaars and shops around the centre.

Food

Street food is huge in Istanbul. On every corner you’ll see vendors selling Simit and corn on the cob in these fun-fair-esque food stalls. Prices are fixed stall-to-stall so there’s no point going away to see if there might be an undercut a few steps away.

As I’ve grown, for me travel photography is less about staging the shot but more about letting the scene come to you. One reason I say this is because I don’t find emulating photos that should really belong on postcards appealing anymore. On the flipside, it is difficult to pin down in words what I would define my style as. Maybe one day I’ll look back and I’ll uncover a stylistic element that strings all my photos together. Until I discover that, I will continually be spamming the shutter button.