Global Eye: Turkey
Photographer: Fikret Onal from Toronto, Ontario, CA
Getting the Shot: Ortakoy Mosque has a unique heritage in this neighborhood and I had been planning for a long time to capture it. [It was] before sunrise on a Sunday morning right in front of the Bosporus Bridge, where the two continents (Europe and Asia) are almost touching each other.
I was a little bit late and I did not know exactly where the sun would be coming up. And it was an overcast, dull morning and most of the fishermen had already left for fishing. Luckily there were still three vessels there waiting for duty. And there were still some people hanging around, burning their candles at both ends, and a bunch of university students making music, playing guitar and singing all together out loud. The lights on the bridge and the mosque were still on and turned off right after taking this shot. Otherwise, most likely the façade of the mosque would have been too dark.
The Details: I live in Toronto, and my mom
and sister live in Istanbul. I was there to visit them last summer for
a short period of time. However, I was dying to spare some time in the city
to take some photographs, so we
made a deal the previous night with my little nephew and my mom to wake up really early in the pitch dark to go to
Ortakoy. The only reason that I had to make a deal on this was to make sure
that this mischievous 8-year old boy would not cry out for being woken
up in the middle of his sleep. It turned out that he loves to carry up
my tripod even though it was heavy and as tall as him. That was the
first time for him to visit this place.
I still shoot film by using Canon EOS ELAN 7N camera. I used Velvia 50 film and Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L USM lens at f/22 around 18mm to have enough DOF to get the mosque as well as the leading poles sharp. Since the sky was so boring, I attached my 1-stop graduated tobacco and 1-stop graduated neutral density Cokin filters to give a try. Hopefully you guys like it even though it is so unreal.
IT loves the combination of new (the bridge) and old (the mosque), and the surreal coloring of the sky.
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Magnificent...
Keep up the good work pal.
Posted by: Cellchook John | January 18, 2008 at 09:46 AM