A couple of years ago my girlfriend Melanie and I made a list of places we would like to visit. Traveling to Mexico was pretty much a given since I try to go there as often as possible to visit family. In our first trip we traveled to Mexico and explored Oaxaca and other places around the city. Melanie is a French and Spanish teacher so we thought that it would be interesting to get us both out of our element and travel to a place where neither of us spoke the language. Turkey made it to the top of our list.
Just last month we were able to begin crossing countries off our list by heading to Istanbul. We only had a little over a week to travel so we decided to stick around Istanbul and not try to see too much in a small amount of time. I am happy to report that I am glad we did that. In my travels I had never gone to a place that had a culture that was completely new to me. The places I have visited in the past have always been similar in culture and I could most likely get around speaking Spanish, English or my limited French.
Istanbul captivated me from the moment I got there, the people, smells, architecture and not long after our arrival, the food. The language sounds awesome. I had heard Turkish spoken in my college years while hanging out with my friend Serdar. Unfortunately, any Turkish he taught me could not be used in regular conversation. After a couple days we were able to start deciphering some of the sounds and begin to make out familiar words.
My plan was not to go too crazy with photo gear so decided to take only one camera body and about five lenses to choose from. Each day I would pick one or two lenses and leave the others behind. That worked out great given that we were walking almost everywhere we went. Took a couple tilt/shift lenses to shoot architecture, a couple of prime lenses and my trusty 24-70mm. There were two things I wanted to primarily shoot, the first one being general shots of the culture and life. Secondly, I wanted to shoot a series of time-lapse videos whenever possible. Here you will see a rough version of one of those time-lapse videos.
It was a great trip and would recommend experiencing Istanbul to anybody. The people are great and for those of you wondering, yes, we felt safe all the time. A friend predicted we would come home with a rug…we did. Those guys selling rugs are good I tell you…good! Car sales people should learn from them. The guy we got our rug from was very nice and genuine when compared to some of the other salesmen we had encountered. A couple of days after we bought the rug he spent some time with us and gave us a lesson in backgammon while drinking tea and puffing on a nargile (hookah). Tried a couple local delicacies out of our comfort zone, drank some Raki and realized in a short period of time that someday we would want to visit Istanbul again. Oh and by the way, I am now addicted to Turkish coffee.
Just last month we were able to begin crossing countries off our list by heading to Istanbul. We only had a little over a week to travel so we decided to stick around Istanbul and not try to see too much in a small amount of time. I am happy to report that I am glad we did that. In my travels I had never gone to a place that had a culture that was completely new to me. The places I have visited in the past have always been similar in culture and I could most likely get around speaking Spanish, English or my limited French.
Istanbul captivated me from the moment I got there, the people, smells, architecture and not long after our arrival, the food. The language sounds awesome. I had heard Turkish spoken in my college years while hanging out with my friend Serdar. Unfortunately, any Turkish he taught me could not be used in regular conversation. After a couple days we were able to start deciphering some of the sounds and begin to make out familiar words.
My plan was not to go too crazy with photo gear so decided to take only one camera body and about five lenses to choose from. Each day I would pick one or two lenses and leave the others behind. That worked out great given that we were walking almost everywhere we went. Took a couple tilt/shift lenses to shoot architecture, a couple of prime lenses and my trusty 24-70mm. There were two things I wanted to primarily shoot, the first one being general shots of the culture and life. Secondly, I wanted to shoot a series of time-lapse videos whenever possible. Here you will see a rough version of one of those time-lapse videos.
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