Some cool photo sites images:
The Encounter
Image by Frederic Mancosu
You know how sometimes random events that made no sense upfront shape up to put you into a certain place at a certain time? A place where suddenly you feel you needed to go all along? It's such a string of coincidences and things going wrong that led to this image.
I came home from work today and packed the 400mm to go take a particular shot I had in mind. Having waited some days for the weather to be right, I really wanted to get this one done. So there I was stacking a quick kit together when I suddenly thought "what the ****, let's pack the 85 as well". Maybe because I'm still getting used to it, maybe because I already knew I wouldn't get the shot I set out to take and would need a fallback plan. I had no particular use for it in mind, but it found its way into my bag anyhow.
I left for the city. Upon arrival however, it was quite apparent I wouldn't make it to the spot I wanted to go to in time to still get the fast setting sun into the shot (maybe it's peeved for what I wrote earlier? ;-). That being, I still tried and got on the streetcar as fast as I could. The sun started to be dangerously low... it was at least 15 minutes to my spot... that amounts to a whole lifetime in sun-setting years.
The realization I wouldn't make it had just begun to push around my optimism a bit when suddenly I felt an urge to leave the streetcar. I jumped off and having missed the planned use for it, dismounted the tele...
What now? It'd have been a bit stupid to just go back home without firing a single frame... Would the 85 see some light after all?
With it mounted, I engaged into some little backstreet that cut into old-town and landed right in front of this scene a couple of instants later... not a sunset image, but maybe a good way to make the excursion and the 85's company count.
Not planned in any way, but somehow, everything led up to this. Strange how this happens sometimes, right?
Turkish Delight I
Image by Frederic Mancosu
It was 2 a.m. when we landed in Istanbul. We were tired and hungry and something in my passport didn't quite please the customs guy.
With customs cleared, we turned ourselves to the usual formalities you go through in new environments, we explored the arrivals terminal, got turkish currency, a turkish prepaid phone card with no indication as to how much credits were really on it and a turkish coffee.
It hadn't taken us long to realize that in places where English isn't commonplace... It just isn't.
Despite the language barrier, it did start to occur to us that the shuttle bus was suspiciously absent... Which for a daytime bus is not that suspicious on 2:45 a.m. in hindsight.
It turned out it wouldn't leave for Taksim square till 6 o'clock... In the empty nightriden airport terminal of Sabhia Göksun that was ages away.
In short, we soon lost patience, took the first city bus we saw and left for the unknown. An adventure had begun, that we couldn't have measured the scope of.
After a tour left and right through the asian suburbs, the bus eventually took us to a shore. This couldn't be all too wrong, since we could now see the city from afar, beyond the bosphorus.
The first of many thousand commuters started to gather at the waterfront and lined up in front of a pier. The day was slowly rising. We followed the small crowd onto one of two boats steaming by... As with the bus, the choice was random.
