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A Turkish Tupperware party?
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I asked this soldier near the
Archeological Museum in Istanbul if I could take his picture. He was happy to oblige, posing seriously
with his submachine gun.
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A woman in Pergamon.
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| Boys swimming in the Bosphorus
late one afternoon. Istanbul can get warm...it was in the 90s
when we were there. I seriously considered joining these guys,
except I didn't want to create an international incident by stripping down
to my underwear...
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Many of the women in Turkiye wear the
traditional Islamic scarf. |
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| Two of the boys swimming in the
Bosphorus. |
A great shot of a Turkish boy... |
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Another Turkish boy. |
A fruit vendor in Izmir. |
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| A vendor in Istanbul's Grand
Bazaar. There are approximately 4,000 shops in the Grand Bazaar. |
A Turkish man in Istanbul. |
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| Fresh veggies in a Turkish store
front. Turks love fresh vegetables and
fruits. The food in Turkiye is fabulous.
|
Peppers and mussels.
They looked great. |
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I'm not sure what this fruit
is. It sure looks good. |
Olives are a mainstay.
We saw them everywhere.
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Dried figs are popular in
Turkiye. |
A merchant at a grocery store
in Izmir.
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Seafood is also very popular. |
Fresh veggies in another
store-front window. |
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Doner, or meat on a rotating
vertical rotisserie. This is a very common way to cook meat in
Turkish restaurants. |
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| The meat (we saw doners for
beef, lamb, and chicken) is skewered vertically and slowly turned.
The chef trims cooked meat from the outside, allowing the inner meat to
cook as the outer portions are cut away. |
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A woman preparing food in a
restaurant window. |
Shish-ke-bobs, or ke-bop, as
the Turks call it. Yep, this is where it comes
from. Ke-bop is a very popular way
to prepare food in Turkiye.
|
Selling grilled lamb and
vegetables. |
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Another woman preparing bread in
a restaurant window.
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I was surprised to see pigs'
feet in a Turkish open air market. Muslims don't eat pork.
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Fresh fish, packaged in a
restaurant window. |
Ah, our cultural
contribution. These things are all over the world, even in Istanbul. |
| E-mail notes on the food photos
from our viewers... |
|
Your web site appeared while I was searching
for "Turkish Food". You have really nice pictures. I would
like to thank you as a Turkish nation. I would like to give some
information about your comment next to a picture telling that
"you were surprised that you saw pigs feet in an open
market" . I guess You saw cow/lamb feet, which is used to
make a kind of soup called "kelle-paca corbasi" which means
"head and feet soup". I know it sounds weird! But yes they
make soup from cow feet and head meat. Cow feet soup and
tribe soup(another weird soup!), two soups which is sold in
specialty restaurants where they generally serve food
between 10 pm - 6 a.m.
As I see from the picture, it is sliced
tribe meat next to the cow feets. Tribe soup is known as best food
if you had too much alchohol and want to recover from hangover :)
thanks for your interest on Turkish food.
take care
|
hi Joe,
one more comment about Turkish food link
in your web site
It is written "Dried Figs are popular
in Turkiye" next to dried apricots picture...
Indeed, both fig and apricot are popular in
Turkiye. And most of the dried figs and apricots sold in Grocery
stores in US are from Turkiye.
|
|
Can you change the English explanation
of "Kelle paca Corbasi" as " the sheep's
head-and-hoof soup"
thanks.
|
| One of the two main buildings
comprising the Istanbul Archeological Museum. |
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A bust inside the museum. I used
my 50mm 1.4 Nikon lens for many of these shots, without flash.
I found, not surprisingly, that flash photography is prohibited in many of
the museums we visited. |
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Tile mosaics from the
Babylonian era. |
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Another Babylonian tile mosaic. |
| And yet another. These are
in remarkably good condition. |
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Sue in the Archeological Museum. |
|
I felt like Indiana Jones
when viewing many of the exhibits.
Nearly all of these shots
were with my Nikon 50mm 1.4 lens, using primarily 100 and 200 Fuji print
film. I did not use a tripod (tripods were not allowed in many
places). |
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The art was amazing. |
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I couldn't even begin to
guess what these guys are doing. Maybe the big dude is a bill
collector trying to shake the change out of the little dude's pockets. |
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Art from Rome, Greece, and many
other ancient cultures is contained in the Istanbul Archeological
Museum. In fact, the museum owns so many artifacts that may are
stacked up outside the display areas like cordwood. Many
civilizations crossed through or settled in Turkiye.
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This work is either Greek or
Roman. |
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A large bust, obviously on
display outside the Archeological museum. |
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Another sculpture. As
mentioned above, for the
indoor shots I my super-fast
1.4D 50mm Nikon lens.
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The Archeological Museum has
collected so many antiquities that many of them are on display outside.
Here's one taken from ground level (i.e.,
me on the ground), using the 24-120 Nikon lens. |
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Sue admiring a large
sculpture outside the Archeological Museum buildings. |
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A sculpture on a stone surface. |
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And another one... |
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A sarcophogus outside the
museum. Inside, the Archeological Museum contains the sarcophogus
of Alexander the Great. |
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We saw several students
making sketches of the sculptures. |
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One of the many busts. |
| A final shot of the front of one
of the buildings in the Archeological Museum. |
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Fresh olives at the Spice
Market. |
| The almost obligatory Spice
Market shot. You can't pick up a book about Turkiye without seeing
this.
The smells were fabulous. |
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Candy. |
| More candy. |
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And yet more candy. These
are nuts in fig halves. They almost look like burgers... |
| Sue with one of the Spice Market
merchants. |
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Another standard Spice Market
photograph. |
| And another. Curry.
Chili. Peppers of all varieties.. Paprika. This was
great... |
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The Blue Mosque, one of the most
beautiful mosques in the world. |
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Another view of the Blue
Mosque. |
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The interior of the Blue Mosque,
showing the ornate ceiling tile work.
I took this shot with the Sigma 17-35 on
the F5, using the timed shutter release, with the camera on the ground
looking straight up. The lens was cranked all the way over to
17mm. Yep, that's me looking at the camera. |
|
A hand-held shot inside the
Blue Mosque.
Note the large carpet and its
prayer stations.
When I was here about ten
years ago, individual prayer rugs covered the floor. Too many were stolen,
though, so the authorities incorporated a single large carpet with the
prayer stations woven in. |
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More shots with the F5 on the
floor. |
| The contrast in this shot was
just a bit much. I wanted to pick up the stained glass windows, but
that wiped out the ceiling tile detail. |
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This one isn't too bad.
If you look very closer at the center dome,
you can just barely detect an object handing about 30 feet below the
central dome. It is a chandelier that contains three ostrich
eggs. Ostrich eggs emit a natural insect and spider repellant, and
that's why these are here. |
|
One of the minarets
surrounding the Blue Mosque. |
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A shot inside the courtyard
behind the Blue Mosque. |
| And antother, on a brighter day,
with the 17-35 Sigma all the over to 17mm. |
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| The amphitheatre at Pergamon.
Built during the third century BC, it seats 10,000 people. |
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The Temple of Trajan
ruins. |
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A close up showing the
detail attained by early sculptors. |
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Another shot showing the Temple
of Trajan ruins. |
| Columns in front of the Pergamon
library. |
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Marc Antony moved the contents
of the library to Egypt as a gift to Cleopatra. They were later
returned. |
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Columns near the Pergamon library. |
|
More ruins. Can you
imagine life here in Greek or Roman times? |
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Miscellaneous structures near
the amphitheatre. |
| A fellow traveler studying his
tour guide above the amphitheatre in Pergamon. |
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More ruins above the
amphitheatre. |
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| On the way from the airport in Izmir to the Grand Mercur
Hotel, we passed this small mosque. It was beautiful,
and I was surprised when the guide didn't mention it. I asked about the mosque after we had passed it, and the guide told me
it was the Cini Mosque. "Cini" means "tile" in
Turkish (or so I am told). She told me that the mosque was
relatively new, and that it had taken ten years to complete. Two days later, on our way to Ephesus, I asked the guide
to stop at
the Cini Mosque so that I could take these photographs. The sun was
at my back in the early morning and the lighting was perfect.
The Cini Mosque is covered in tile. It is in a
residential area, with vegetable stands on the street in front of the
mosque. The shopkeepers apparently (and surprisingly) had not seen many people
stop to take pictures. They were understandably proud of the Cini
Mosque. Several local folks suggested vantage points and helped me
get to good spots to photograph their mosque. I shot the the first photo after climbing to the top of a stone wall and
setting up on top of it. I shot the one on the right from the street that
runs in front of it. A Turkish police officer approached me while I was setting up for this
shot. I thought he was going to shoo me away or tell me I couldn't
use a tripod, but he just wanted to watch me admire an obvious source of
neighborhood pride. I don't speak Turkish and the police officer
didn't speak English, but he indicated his approval and pride with a smile
and a nod of his head. I created all of the shots on this page with the F5 in the aperture
mode (at f8), the 24-120 Nikon lens, a Hoya polarizer, and Fuji 100
Superia film. |
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An interesting view from one of the Dolmabahce Palace
windows, looking at Asia across the Straits of Bosphorus. |
| Some of the ornate trim on the
Dolmabahce Palace. |
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The surrounding gardens are
beautiful, as is the palace itself. |
|
A view of the pond in front
of the palace. |
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Sue took this shot of me with
the Dolmabahce Palace in the background. |
|
These guys, members of a
martial band and marching group, were performing in the courtyard when we
entered the Palace. |
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We arrived at about midday,
which explains the harsh shadows on this soldier's face. The
lighting wasn't ideal. |
|
I used the 70-300 Sigma for
these shots. I remember wishing I had the 170-500 Sigma. The
70-300 did a good job, but my 170-500 is quite a bit sharper. |
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Colorful, aren't they? |
|
This one is a bit fuzzy, but
the composition and the colors are super. |
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The outfits these guys had on
were really fabulous. I wish I knew more about they represent.
If any of you know, please pass your information on to me via e-mail. |
|
A drummer. Quite a
drum. |
 |
Hello thanks for the nice comment for OMM buletin. I was taking a look
at your photos and saw that you had a question about the outfits worn by
the band you saw at Dolmabahce palace. So I thought I might try to help
out a bit.
The band is called the Mehter . They are actually one of the first if
not first military bands in the world. The ottoman army as it advanced
had a serious beat going with it. This was specially true for large
standing army to standing army battles or advanced towards fixed
targets. The infantry in synch with the band would take 3 steps forward
and 1 step back. This was actually how they would attack en masse.
It
had a devastating psych effect. The various colors you saw were for the
various different instrument sections and different levels of rank. The
ottoman army was highly structured and trained for individual combat
skills. There was a clear way for an individual to quickly rise up
through ranks for better social position if the person was able to
accomplish orders/tasks. This would/could lead up all the way being
Pasha (kind of like a Lord) or even into the Ottoman Royal court.
The chain armoured helmeted soldier seen in your pictures was what some
of the soldiers that were assigned to mehter looked like. In smaller
battles the mehter actually had its own deffense, in larger bigger
battles with more people involved they didn't tend to.
The Mehter group would move with the army playing various marches to
lift the spirit of the figting man. However unlike the typical european
marching bands that came to be later in history they did not play a 4:4
beat instead played a 5:9 tempo which is pretty complex comparatively.
I mean simply put you can play 4:4 like rhytm on a drum set within 2min
practice but keeping a 5:9 going is something else.
According to generaldocuments Mehter members never fought a battle
themselves even tought they would be on the frontlines.
Hope this gives a bit of info.
Take care,
Omer.
 |
One of the clocks inside the
Dolmabahce Palace. Flash was not allowed, so I switched over
to my 1.4 50mm Nikon. That lens is ideal for shooting indoors. |
|
A vase inside the Dolmabahce
Palace. |
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Might take a while to guess what
this is.
It is an older, leaded glass skylight. |
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A colorful chair inside the
Palace. |
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Yours truly. I can't pass
a shot near a mirror. Proof positive that I am not using a flash.... |
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Some of the stonework. |
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More interior shots.... |
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Here's another view outside
the Palace. I had switched back to the 24-120 Nikon with a Hoya polarizer. |
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One of the decorated ceilings
inside the Palace. |
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These paintings hung inside
the Palace. The artist is unknown. |
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Another painting. These
are pictures that are just hanging in one of the hallways. They are
beautiful. |
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And another painting,
courtesy of the Nikon 50mm 1.4 lens. |
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Statues outside the palace. |
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A feline crocodile hunter on
the Dolmabahce Palace grounds. |
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The Obelisk of Theodosius in the
Hippodrome. This was based on Egyptian architecture. Doesn't
it look familiar to the Washington Monument? |
| The pit. The sculpture in
the middle is of three intertwined serpents.
On an earlier trip to Turkiye, a guide told
me that the ancient authorities kept live, venomous snakes in the bottom
of this pit, and condemned prisoners were tossed in to let the snakes do
the dirty work. Our guide on this trip said that was not true. |
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A shot of the same obelisk, from
another side. |
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One of the buildings on the
courtyard in the Hippodrome. |
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Wow. 1600 years old. |
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Some of the stone work in the
Hippodrome. |
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| The Kariye Church is another
structure in Instanbul that has served as a Christian church, a mosque,
and now, a museum. It is famous for its gold and fresco mosaics,
which I captured here with my 17-35 Sigma and the 50mm 1.4D Nikon lens. I
grabbed this shot without using flash. On another shot (shown below)
a tour guide quickly told me no flash was allowed. After that, I
used the 17mm at about 1/30 second and 2.8 (wide open). The 50mm was
faster, but I couldn't get everything I wanted into the picture. |
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Another mosaic. |
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The domed ceiling in Kariye
Camii. |
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This is the same picture shown
in the first image above, but further back with the 17mm. |
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Another one of the beautiful
mosaics. |
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We saw these two fellows our first night in Istanbul in the
Beyocglu area near the pedestrian walkway. I suppose I was expecting
something a bit more primitive, but the Turkish motorcyclists I saw had
very modern machines.
This is a new Suzuki Hayabusa, the world's fastest motorcycle. |
| The jacket notwithstanding, these guys are actually Turks. |
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Having recently completed the Police and Military
Motorcycles book, I couldn't help noticing the interesting variety of
Turkish police motors. Current and prior generation GS-series BMWs
were common police mounts. |
| A close-up of the insignia on a Turkish police BMW.
Note the two helmets. More often than not, police motorcycles in
Turkiye carried two officers. |
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I saw this Triumph on Princess Island. It is the only
time I have evere seen a modern Triumph in police service. This is
Triumph's dual-sport model. It makes sense, considering that most of
Princess Island is a Turkish National Forest. |
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A head-on shot of the Turkish police Triumph. |
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Another close-up of the insignia on a police motorcycle in
Istanbul. |
| Here's a Honda CBX 750 in police service in Izmir. |
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The CBX 750 Honda makes marvelous sense as a police
motorcycle, and they are popular all over the world. They have a
shaft drive and are, like most Hondas, incredibly reliable. U.S.
police departments have never asked for this model, and Honda does not
sell it in the U.S. |
| I noticed that quite a few of the motorcycles I saw in
Turkiye belonged to European tourists. Some of the following
pictures show the European tourists and their machines. |
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I saw this couple on a Honda Transalp (a 600cc, v-twin,
dual-sport machine still sold in Europe) outside the Kariye Museum in
Istanbul. They rode to Istanbul from Milan, Italy. What a
ride! |
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A BMW from Rome. |
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Some of the European tourists even make the trip to Turkiye
on scooters. |
| This is Reinhard and his Yamaha Tenere. Reinhard is
from Germany. I grabbed this shot in Istanbul.
I failed to get his last name, but my guess is that we will be reading
about Reinhard's exploits in the near future.
Check out the saddlebags on Reinhard's Yamaha (see the photos
below). This man has done some serious traveling! |
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I snapped this TL1000S Suzuki, with a Turkish license plate,
outside the Grand Mercur hotel in Izmir.
I have the same machine (in bright red) at home in California. |
| Another Yamaha Tenere in Istanbul. This motorcycle is
not sold in the U.S. |
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Here's a Cagiva, which is another motorycle not sold in the
U.S. |
| I snapped this bike in Istanbul. I didn't even know
such a machine existed.... |
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Yep, it's an 800cc single-cylinder Suzuki dual-sport. |
| This is the sole Kawasaki I saw in Turkiye. Kawasaki
just didn't seem to have much of a presence in Turkiye. |
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An MZ 301, another bike not sold in the U.S. |
| The MZ is a single-cylinder, two-stroke motorcycle.
That's the Bosphorus in the background. |
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Another MZ, this time in Izmir. |
| A couple of Italian tourist bikes, this time at Ephesus. |
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This BMW also made the trip from Italy to Ephesus. |
| E-mail notes from readers.... |
Dear friend
I'm a biker in turkey who has been checking your website (good work) but I
think you could have had much more and much better photos taken in turkey,
I
think you have been hanging out in the wrong places for bikes, so the next
time you are in Turkey (especially in the summer) check out bagdat street
in
the asian side of the city, its a very nice place and full of very nice
bikes, you should also check out the Harley Cafe on the bosphores.
Keep up the goodwork
p.s. I ride a cbr600 |
| One one of days in Istanbul,
our friend Minet took us on the ferry to Princess Island. Princess
Island is a beautiful place, with restaurants, shops, magnificent homes,
and outstanding photography opportunities.
We were caught in a thunderstorm just as
the ferry docked at Princess Island, which enhanced the sense of adventure
I felt and the island's almost mystical qualities. We had a great
afternoon there. |
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One of the beautiful homes on
Princess Island. |
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Another home, this time
showing the classical Istanbul wooden structure. |
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Another wooden home, obviously
unrestored. |
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Yet another wooden home on
Princess Island, with a real princess in front of it... |
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A fountain in front of one of
the homes. |
| A flower after the
thunderstorm. I shot this with the 24-120 Nikon. The image
quality for this sort of closeup is okay, but it would have been much
better had I switched to my Sigma 50mm EX macro lens. |
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There are no cars on princess
island. Walking, bicycling, or horse-drawn carts are the only forms
of tranportation. |
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Hauling produce... |
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Another old home on the island. |
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The doors were very
intriguing.
Doors make interesting
subjects... |
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Another door.... |
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And another.
Princess Island was a
fantastic place. |
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Ephesus is a remarkable
place. This is the ancient library. |
| Sue and I in front of the
library. The towering front is very dramatic. |
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Another shot of the library. |
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Yep, this place had my
attention. |
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A shot up close, which allowed
me to compose the photograph without any people in it. |
| One of the arches at Ephesus. |
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More of the ornate stone work. |
| A view of the main road through
Ephesus. You can almost imagine Romans strolling down this walkway
in togas. |
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Greek writing. |
|
We visited Turkiye in August,
and it was hot... |
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A view from inside the columns
at the Ephesus library. |
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Another view showing Greek
writing inside the archway. |
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Here's the amphitheatre at
Ephesus. |
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Another view of the main
walkway through Ephesus. |
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Most interesting....a community
toilet. The ancients used to sit here, do their business, and converse
with their colleagues. |
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There's a museum in the
modern town of Ephesus, with stunning sculptures from the ancient
town. Here's Sue admiring one of the sculptures. |
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Another interesting bust.
This actually looks just like a guy with whom I used to work. |
|
A modern picture showing life
in ancient Ephesus. |
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Another interesting bust....
|
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More artwork stacked up outside
the Ephesus museum. There are so many antiquities that many of them
are left outside the museum. |
|
I believe this is Zeus.
Not a bad shot for a handheld photograph without a tripod and no flash.
|
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Here's what's left of the Temple of Artemis, one of the
Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. |
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Linking the Black Sea to the
Mediterranean, the Straits of Bosphorus form one of the strategic
waterways in the world. This is a view looking north at one of
several bridges spanning the straits. Europe is on the left, and
Asia is on the right. |
|
I shot these photographs while
on a ferry (or "Feribot" in Turkish).
|
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Here's another bridge. Sue
and I walked across it from the European side (where I was when I shot
this photograph) to the Asian side. Note the Tower of Galata to the
left of the bridge. |
|
Girl Island. One of the
sultans wanted to isolate his daughter from her suitors, so he built this
home in the straights. If it looks familiar, you might have seen it
in a recent James Bond movie ("The World Is Not Enough").
|
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A Turk relaxing on a small boat
late in the afternoon. I metered on the sun's reflection in the
water to produce the silhouette effect. The sun was a few degrees
above the top of this photograph, just out of the picture. |
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A boat docked along the
sidewalk.
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Three fisherman heading back. |
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One of the Feribots. I
caught this photograph as the ferry cut across our wake.
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A catamaran ferry, at speed, in
the Bosphorus. |
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Sue, with the Bosphorus in the
background.
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Minet, Selim, and Sue, in the
late afternoon, with Europe in the background. |
|
Sue and I on one of the many
walkways along the water.
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I took this photograph as
evening fell. We were at the Tower of Galata for dinner. |
|
Here's another interesting
photograph I shot the night before we left Turkiye. This is the
Tower of Galata, from the European side of the Bosphorus. I used my
70-300 Sigma, with the F5 resting on the camera bag, in Aperture mode,
using the self-timer.
We had dinner the night before on the upper
level, which was my vantage point for the photograph immediately above. |
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We stopped at a ceramics factory
tourist trap on the way back from Ephesus. This was a factory with a
built-in show room, which is something I have seen on guided tours
throughout the world.
The artistry was great; the prices were
outrageous. |
|
More interesting tile work. |
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And yet more. In this
photograph, the tile work almost looks like a Turkish carpet. |
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An interesting porcelain
vase. |
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Interesting plates. |
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More interesting plates. |
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These two really caught my
eye. We found a great little shop in Izmir the night before we
visited this place and we purchased the plate on the right for $20.
The same plate in the tourist trap was about $230. |
|
A couple of interesting
urns.
I used my 50mm 1.4D lens for
most of these shots, nearly wide open in the Aperture mode, without
flash. It is a great lens. |
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|
