Photographer in Colorado

For the last full day in Istanbul, Susan had planned for a ferry ride to the Prince’s Islands. But first, I was up early in the morning, so I headed out of the rental house before breakfast. We had seen a red-brick building located close by the house, but could not figure out more info. So I navigated through the streets to locate the building. This was the Greek School, that is no longer in use. Perhaps it was a relic of the Population Exchange that occurred many years earlier?

The school building had a very distinctive style, with crenelated decorations along the roof. The walls of the building were decorated with light and dark colored brickwork.

Walking through the neighborhood, I found a small minaret close by.

Lower down our street, I found a clothes line, loaded with clothes, stretched across the street from this house.

Of course, the neighborhood had its fair share of cats. This guy was draped over a terracotta tiled roof a couple of blocks from the rental.

It was eventually time from us to make our way to the Prince’s Islands. These islands are located in the Sea of Marmara, off the coast from the Asian side of Istanbul. We took a ride to the ferry terminal, where there were crowds of people that were waiting to make the same journey. Here are some images made during our ferry ride.

Susan…

Warwick…

When we arrived at Prince’s Island, we hired bicycles for the day. The islands are unique in that there are no motorized vehicles on the roads. Only horse drawn carriages and bicycles are permitted. Here is Angela astride her bike.

We stopped for lunch that was at a restaurant on the top of the hill. We had to dismount bikes and walk the half mile up the hill to the restaurant. This is a view from the island, looking back towards the Asian side of Istanbul, with one of the other islands in the foreground (or should that be fore sea?).

During our bike ride, I made a couple of images of some of the houses located on the island.

In this image, I captured another house that had accumulated layers of peeling paint.

That is one of the final images that I made of our trip to Turkey. On the following day, we would be heading back home after a fabulous vacation.

 

For the next day in Istanbul, we decided to stay in the Balat area, where the rental house was located. Before breakfast, I headed out into the street for some exploration. Our rental house was located near the top of a steep street, where I made this image.

Balat is an old area of Istanbul. There is a mixture of dilapidated houses, that are gradually deteriorating, and houses that have been remodeled and renovated. The really old houses have some interesting textures, as can be seen in this image, where plaster had fallen off the wall to reveal underlying brickwork.

Making my way down the steep street, I encountered the colorful flower boxes along one storefront.

Like many cities around the world, this area is becoming increasingly more gentrified. These three houses, in Kiremit Street, are typical of the remodeled houses in Balat.

Another street was lined with black bollards to keep cars off the sidewalk.

I eventually returned to the top of street, above the rental house, where I encountered several other early risers who had hit the streets.

After breakfast, we decided to do some shopping in the nearby stores. While making our way there, we stopped at the Fatih Mosque. This is, perhaps, one of the most beautiful mosques in Istanbul. The main worship area has lighting located about 10 feet above the floor. In this image, I captured the fabulous domed ceilings that had chains that suspended the lights.

This mosque also had a huge red carpeted floor. The carpet included intricately detailed designs that can be seen in the following image.

Passing by the main entrance, I made the following image of the mosque’s courtyard, where ablution facilities are located.

Like many of the Turkish mosques, the heavy doors were decorated with geometric designs.

After exiting the mosque through the main entrance, I stopped by the ablution fountain to make this image.

The mosque had many domes that were included in the design of the roofs around the courtyard. At the peak of the dome, is an ornament, usually golden in color. I am sure that these dome ornaments have a name, but I have not yet found reference to this in various internet searches. I made this image that included the roof line with ornament against the blue sky.

Leaving the mosque, we made our way to the stores. Some of the stores are really specialized. In this image, the vendor only sells dates. These have been harvested from various areas and countries around the middle east.

The Turks are really enterprising people. In this image, one can get knives sharpened in the street. This vendor had setup his grindstones on a cart in the street. That guy in the orange shirt was amused by my interest in making photographs of the knife grinder!

During the afternoon, we made our way down the streets of Balat. We found these two chidren enjoying a ride in the steep streets. They were fortunate that there were few cars in the area to spoil there enjoyment!

We also passed this one really steep street, lined with really coloful houses.

At the bottom of the street, Susan and Warwick found a cat sleeping on the porch roof above a doorway.

This cat was the source of interest!

Susan and Angela visited the Turkish baths, while Warwick and I walked through the streets. One interesting building house the “Hobbit House” that serves breakfast.

Here is another street scene that we found in Balat, where these two guys were chatting out in a street full of colorful houses.

Further along the same street, we arrived at back of the Hobbit House, when I found several bikes parked on the sidewalk.

After meeting up with Angela and Susan, we all went for dinner at one of the local restaurants that had been recommended by our landlord.

 

Our tour had finished in Istanbul and we had a few days to spend. Susan and her boyfriend, Warwick, had arrived from London during the night and would only wake later in the morning. I headed out of the hotel early before breakfast. Out in the street, recyclers were busy reclaiming recycled trash. This is an important source of income to these folks, who are mainly refugees from other countries outside Turkey.

Nearby streets are empty, after late night revelers had filled the streets.

I headed down to the Eminonü waterfront. Several fishermen were draped over the railing, attempting an early morning catch.

I watched as this guy caught a fish. He was very pleased with the catch that he made a photograph with his smartphone. Perhaps it was his first catch?

It was time to return to the hotel for breakfast. After a couple of hours, Susan had surfaced; she had arrived at 2am in the morning after a delayed flight. All four of us loaded into a taxi and headed to a rental house in the Balat area of Istanbul.

After unpacking and meeting the landlord, Peter, we headed to the Basilica Cistern. All of us had read Dan Brown’s book “Inferno”, also made into a movie. The final location for the book was set in this cistern. This cistern was built during Roman times under the city, and is one of many cisterns below the city.

One of the pillars supporting the roof of the cistern is built on a Medusa head. The base of this pillar has two heads, one on its side (pictured below), and one upside down. These Medusa heads supposedly ward off evil.

Later, we headed across to the cafe near the Blue Mosque (avoiding the carpet salesmen), where Warwick wanted to smoke a Hookah (or Shisha). Angela also decided to try it out.

Here is Warwick.

And Susan too!

Our landlord had recommended that we head up to the rooftop of the Pera Palace Hotel for sunset. Here there is a great view of the city of Istanbul that we enjoyed with a sun-downer. In this image, we look down on the Galata tower, foreground left. The Blue Mosque, with its six minarets, can be seen in the background on the left. In the distance is the sea of Marmara.

Panning to the right is a view looking down to the Haliç Metro bridge. The Metro railway crosses the Haliç (Golden Horn) over this bridge. There is also a station located in the middle of this bridge.

As the sun set over the horizon, I made this image of the skyline with pink/purple skies.

In the opposite direction, the lights of Bosphorus bridge had switched on. The Bosphorus separates the European side of the city from the Asian side of the city.

It was time for us to find dinner. I made this image of the bar lights with the skyline at blue hour.

Enjoy.

Friday was the last full day of our tour of Turkey, which was the return trip to Istanbul from Safranbolu. We stopped at one of the rest areas for a bio-break and for snacks. The rest areas have a store that sell snacks and beverages. However, many of the rest areas around Turkey, also have stores that sell other merchandise. This rest had stores that sell clay pots and furniture, so of which are shown in this image.

Also on sale were various fruits and nuts. In the following image, I captured a display of hazelnuts, walnuts and almonds. During our tour, we visited many rest areas that had similar nuts on sale.

This rest area also had an extensive selection of Turkish delight candies and Baklava on sale, that are captured in the image below.

We arrived in Istanbul, crossing the Bosphorus Bridge, and arriving at the Golden Horn hotel. This was the same hotel from which we had departed two weeks earlier. Soon after checking in to the hotel, Angela, Julie and I headed for the Spice Bazaar that was close by, in Eminonu. We stopped by one of the spice vendors that was recommended to us. This vendor also had a selection of various teas for sale.

I was fascinated by the balls of Jasmine Tea that I captured below.

Here are the spices that were on display.

Walking through the bazaar, we passed by a booth where the vendor was selling a colorful variety of soaps.

Leaving the bazaar, we headed for the Eminonu waterfront. Angela was fascinated by this roast chestnut vendor.

This vendor was busy organizing the chestnuts into neat and tidy pyramids for display.

Following this weekend was the one of the Turkish holidays, so there were crowds of people in the bazaar and surrounding area. The gardens outside the bazaar was full of people of all ages. In the following image, I captured a pebble bed surrounding one of the trees. The design in the pebbles represents the shape of tulips which are the Turkish national flower.

Two ladies were deep in conversation at the edge of the tulip bed.

We stopped at the Eminonu waterfront. Moored at the waterfront were several boats that functioned as floating kitchens.

The main food prepared in theses kitchens are grilled fish sandwiches. The cooks grill the fish in the floating kitchen. Sandwich orders are taken from the shore, prepared by the cooks and eaten in the dining area on shore.

At the lower level of the Galata Bridge, several workers were sitting in line, taking a break at the end of the day. Several workers were dressed in distinctive bright orange clothes that caught my attention in the following image.

Soon it was time to return to our hotel, where we would regroup for the final dinner with our tour group and Tolga our tour guide. This was the conclusion of our tour group.

Friday morning, I woke early and headed out of our hotel before breakfast. Our hotel (Akçe) was also an Ottoman style house with a beautiful well-groomed garden.

Heading down the cobbled streets, I headed to the town square by the public baths. I waited until a early morning visitor entered the scene and made this image.

I had passed by these circular benches earlier. Returning later, a white cat had climbed onto the bench and provided me an opportunity for a more interesting composition below.

Heading back to the hotel for breakfast, several men had gathered on a bench in the town square, chatting and watching pigeons in this image.

After breakfast, Angela and I headed back, doing some shopping. At the mosque, close to the public baths, I made this image of the roof domes. Each of the domes has an ornament (I am not sure of the name) that appears to be the shape of a crescent moon.

This mosque had a minaret at one of the corners of the main building. Positioning myself below the minaret, I made this image looking directly up at the minaret.

At the rear or the public baths, washing lines were loaded with towels to dry. Perhaps they had been washed and put out to dry?

An archway leads to the front entrance to the baths. I had noticed the two men, sitting on the left in this image, engrossed in their smartphones. Both men had been sitting there for over a half hour without moving!

At one of the cobbled street corners close to the baths, over a dozen cats had congregated, waiting for food. I found one cat under a bench, gazing out at the action in the street.

We stopped at the saffron store, where Angela bought some saffron. I made this image of the store owner waiting in the doorwar for the next customer. This storefront was adorned with several posters and signs extolling the virtues of saffron and advertising other goods for sale.

We passed a perfume store, where bottles of perfume were lined up along the window ledge. As soon as I saw the donkey, I could not help but make this image.

Various stores were selling fabric goods. Stopping at one of theses stores, I made this image of a pile of colorful fabrics.

Another store had glassware, that I captured here.

Many of the cities and towns that we visited in Turkey, had stores selling lamps and lampshades. I found one store that had glass lanterns hanging in the front. The purple glass had a really striking color that is captured in this image.

Soon afterwards, we headed back to the hotel to join the rest of the tour group, to return on the final leg of the journey back to Istanbul.

Our tour group left Göreme (Cappadocia) early on a Thursday morning, heading to for Safranbolu. The route we followed skirted around Turkey’s capital (Ankara), so this journey took some 5 or 6 hours to complete. Safranbolu was an important route for caravans along the Silk Route (the east/west trade route). The town was also in a growing region for saffron. Today, the Old Town of Safronbolu is a Unesco heritage site. Soon after arriving checking in to our hotel, we met by one of the town squares, near the public baths. In this image, I captured the baths and one of the many cobbled streets.

The baths have interesting domed roofs. One feature of the roofs are many small glass-domed windows. These can be seen in the following image.

Many buildings in the town are in Ottoman style. We visited the Ottoman museum, which is an example of an Ottoman style houses. This is an image of the museum from the tea garden.

The museum is an exhibit of the typical lifestyle of Ottoman families. Various rooms in the museum show typical furnishings of Ottoman houses. From the third floor of the museum, one can appreciate the view of many of houses in Old Town.

The terracotta roof of the nearby building is adorned with many chimneys, that I attempted to capture in these two images.

Our visit to the museum was followed by saffron flavored tea in the tea garden. We then meandered through the streets, shopping at some of the stores, while making our way back to the hotel. Blue hour had arrived and lights around town were lit. In this image, I captured the mosque, lit by street lighting against a deep blue sky. I made sure to include the moon in this image.

More to come.

Last Saturday morning, we joined an Audobon birding group at Denver City Park. Canada geese were the most common species. The smaller ponds and lakes in the park were populated with hundreds of geese. We also saw Buffelhead ducks and Northern Shovelers. It was a freezing morning; the main lake was iced over except for a few areas of open water. I took the opportunity of making this panorama.

This was converted to monochrome with Snapseed.