Photographing Istanbul

Basak Prince captures the 'City of the World's Desire' with the Tamron 18-270mm VC PZD and SP 10-24mm lenses.

Article by Jenn Gidman

Images by Basak Prince

"I was born and raised in Istanbul and my whole family still lives there, so I try to go back at least once a year," Basak says. However, although she considers herself a local, her photographic goal during her most recent trip to Istanbul was to look at everything from a tourist's perspective.

"I wanted to pay attention to the little things and pretend I was seeing them for the first time," she says. "We often take for granted the things we have in our own towns and don't see the beauty in them because they're so familiar to us. On this trip, I took pictures at popular tourist destinations, such as the Grand Bazaar, the Istanbul Spice Market, the famous Blue Mosque, the Galata neighborhood, and at Big Island, the largest of the nine so-called Princes' Islands in the Sea of Marmara."

Basak used the Tamron 18-270mm VC PZD and SP 10-24mm lenses on her journey. "My go-to lens was the 18-270," she says. "It was so light for its size and easy to carry around all day in Istanbul, which is a really populated city. In a flash I could go from taking a landscape shot to doing a close-up. I also was able to use the 18-270 as a binocular of sorts, which was very cool."

Unless she was using a tripod, Basak kept the 18-270's Vibration Compensation feature turned on at all times. "For most of the places I traveled to in Istanbul, I went by boat, so the VC was extra helpful in those situations where I was trying to get sharp images while on a shaky surface," she says. "When I was in low-light situations, such as in the Grand Bazaar, the VC also came to the rescue."

The 10-24 was also always in Basak's camera bag. "The images that I created with the 10-24 still wow me," she says. "This lens helped me capture the vastness of Istanbul, where the structures are big and wide and the scenery along the Bosporus strait is endless. Some of my images look almost like panoramic shots. I used the 10-24mm mainly for capturing the architecture and seascapes of Istanbul."

Exploring the Heart of Turkey
In her hunt for compelling travel photos in her hometown, Basak tried to take in her surroundings with a new eye. "If I was looking at buildings, bridges, or shops, I would look for the textures, shapes, colors, and lines and try to bring the extraordinary out of ordinary objects," she explains. "If my eye was drawn to the color of a particular place, that would be my focus. If my eye was drawn to the lines of a scene, I would emphasize that element more in my pictures."

Basak recommends hiring a local guide if you want to shoot a sprawling city such as Istanbul at off-peak times. "I prefer shooting before and during the sunrise, because the colors change so rapidly at this time of day, and the places that are usually more crowded are vacant then," she says. "However, it can be difficult to get to some of these locations during the off-hours if you're not familiar with the city. Find a companion or hire a guide who knows the ins and outs of Istanbul."

Basak made the best of whatever weather and light she encountered there. "I was blessed with beautiful weather on this visit," she says. "However, if the light wasn't the best, I'd focus on the details, textures, or mood of the scene instead. The Istanbul sky has some amazing clouds, for example, so whenever I could, I included clouds in my images."

She was walking down by the water near her house when she spied a perfect morning sky. "I mainly wanted to capture the clouds, but then I saw a little sailboat coming in from the left.," she says. "I realized it would make a great shot. I had the 18-270 on my camera, but I switched over to the 10-24 so I could capture all of those clouds. I had to wait about 20 minutes for the boat to come into the frame."

The versatility of the 18-270 proved handy as Basak wandered the city. She was standing on a park bench, using the lens as binoculars to check out an old mansion that was behind a metal gate and trees, when she spotted a bird on one of the window ledges. "I had a friend holding my legs so I wouldn't fall over, and I stuck the lens through the iron bars," she says. "My original aim was to capture the entire mansion, but when I extended the lens to 270mm, I noticed the bird and the two plastic bottles supporting the window. I also wanted to show the sunlight hitting the side of the window. My depth-of-field was very deep, and I used the Aperture Priority setting to keep everything in focus. Since I was shooting at 270, I tried to keep my shutter speed at least equal or higher than my focal length."

On one of the days Basak was in Istanbul, she tried to photograph the Hagia Sofia, a former mosque now used as a museum and considered to be a masterpiece of Byzantine architecture. "I wasn't successful on that day because of the light," she says. "Then I saw this little sculpture of the Hagia Sophia, and it was perfect. I used a very shallow depth-of-field and tried to focus on some of the minarets and incorporate a nicely blurred background."

Looking for interesting juxtapositions also enabled Basak to show off the city in unique ways. "The Spice Market is another must-see in Istanbul," she says. "At this shop I photographed, they sell almost everything, but spices are the main attraction. I was going to crop in tight so I could mainly focus on the spices, but then I noticed there were these guys in the background all wearing pink shirts. I thought that would be an unusual visual next to the colors of the spices."

Despite Istanbul's colorful vibrancy, Basak would occasionally switch to black and white when the occasion warranted. "On Big Island, there are no cars, so the only way to get from one place to another is to rent a horse carriage or ride a bicycle," she explains. "On every street, you'll see horses. These two that I took a picture of were in line for people to come and rent them. They weren't moving, so I was able to get really close to them. There were some wild colors in the background, which I tried to blur out, but even with a shallow depth-of-field, the horses didn't really stand out the way I wanted. The colors were distracting, so I switched to black and white to make the horses the focus of the image."

Basak's pictorial helped her show her home city in a way she had never seen it herself. "I try to tell a story about a place in my travel images," she says. "I try to do that by going beyond creating images that you see in postcards. I was able to do this in Istanbul by photographing the architecture, local drinks and food, and people to tell a compelling story."

To see more of Basak Prince's work, go to www.flickr.com/photos/basakprince.