Age of EmpiresTom Till uses the Tamron 18-270mm VC PZD lens to photograph the exotic churches, mosques, and natural phenomena of Russia and Turkey. |
Article By Jennifer Gidman Images by Tom Till |
Not knowing the native tongue while on the road poses challenges for even the casual international tourist. For travel photographers, the language barrier creates even more issues as they try to accomplish such everyday tasks as negotiating for shooting space and tracking down lost equipment. |
These cultural roadblocks, however, don't faze Utah photographer Tom Till, who’s made a career for more than three decades venturing to far-flung nations around the globe, including South Africa, Brazil, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Denmark, and Sweden, as well as numerous locations in the United States. Most recently, Till journeyed to the former Byzantine empires of Russia and Turkey last month, where he once more had to navigate an unknown linguistic landscape. |
“That’s one of the challenges over there — no one speaks English like they do in many of the Western European countries,” Till says. “My guide there took me to the wrong airport when it was time for me to head home. None of the taxi drivers speak English, so I had to have my assistant text me a message on my phone with the name of the correct airport so I could show the name to the taxi driver on my phone. Luckily, my airline was on strike at the time and running late, so I made my flight.” |
To lighten his physical (and mental) load, Till took along the Tamron 18-270mm VC PZD lens to capture Russia’s historical architecture and the manmade and Mother-Nature-created marvels situated in neighboring Turkey. The new Piezo Drive incorporated into the 18-270, in combination with Tamron’s exclusive Vibration Compensation image stabilization, offered Till a lightweight imaging companion (the lens offers a 24 percent reduction in length and 18 percent reduction in weight over its predecessor) that nailed every shot. |
“This lens is fantastic,” he says. “I do a lot of walking, and the lens is so light, versatile, and fast. I don’t use autofocus that often, but when I did on occasion, it clicked into focus faster than any of my other lenses.” |
Photo Czar |
On his visit to the largest country in the world, Till’s cruise made stops in St. Petersburg (the former Leningrad) and Moscow, where he concentrated on photographing the helmet-domed churches (also colloquially known as “onion domes”). “I focused on the churches there because they’re so colorful, and I’m really a color guy,” he says. “My main goal this time was to get a photograph of the Church of the Transfiguration on Kizhi Island, an all-wooden church with 22 of those onion domes. If you ever saw Transsiberian with Woody Harrelson, it’s like the church in that movie.”
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In his expeditions to such landmark favorites as St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow’s Red Square and the Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood in St. Petersburg (the site where Emperor Alexander II was assassinated in 1881), Till often took advantage of his jetlag to take in the splendidly hued buildings. “I’d be up at 3 in the morning anyway, so I’d head out for some pre-sunrise shooting and then be there for the sunrise,” he says. “For the Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood, I was the only one shooting it at 4:30 a.m. There were people out and about, though — either tourists or locals who had been up all night drinking.” |
The evening hours also provided the perfect photo op for this self-professed “natural light” shooter. “It never gets dark over there at this time of year,” he says. “Sunset is at 11 or 11:30 p.m. — it’s called the ‘light night.’ If you start shooting at 7:30 p.m. and you’re still not done at 8, no worries: You’ve still got three more hours of good shooting time. I’ve done shooting in Northern Scotland and Iceland, and it’s the same type of situation.” |
The 18-270’s Vibration Compensation, which allows for handheld shooting up to four shutter speeds slower than otherwise possible, came in particularly handy while shooting the exteriors of these iconic religious venues. “About half the places I visited, you weren’t allowed to bring a tripod, even to shoot exteriors,” Till explains. “I was able to shoot St. Basil’s with a tripod from a parking lot across the street and nobody bothered me. But when I was in Red Square, there were about 75 officers with guns. If you want to go into the Kremlin or any of these other places, don’t even think about trying to get a tripod near there. Thanks to the VC feature, I was able to do a lot of handheld photography in those situations. It was a huge help.” |
Which turned out to be quite handy when his tripod actually got stolen — an equipment victim of the language conundrum. “It’s the first time I ever lost a tripod in the field,” Till says. “We were warned of pickpockets over there, so I was being extra careful with my wallet. But when I put my tripod down to get a soda or something, I turned around and it was gone. No one around me spoke any English, so I knew I wasn’t going to get it back.” |
Till in the Land of Turks |
Although he had visited the Republic of Turkey before, Till hadn’t had the chance to explore Istanbul — or to capture images of the famous Blue Mosque (its name comes from the 20,000 blue tiles that make up the interior’s ceiling). The mosque is uncommon because it features six minarets — most mosques have four, two, or one. “I really wanted to get a shot of that mosque, which is one of the most amazing structures in the world,” he says. “It’s huge, and its location right on the Black Sea is unique.” |
Scouting out the perfect shooting location wasn’t easy. “I spent half a morning searching out the tallest hotel with the tallest terrace that would let me shoot,” Till says. “Some of the hotels weren’t that receptive. Then I came across the Hotel Arcadia, which has a balcony that’s nine stories high — the Blue Mosque is right in front of it. They were very helpful there: I set up my tripod and had dinner up there with a glass of wine while I waited for the right light. You can shoot the mosque from there at all different times of the day: at sunrise, with the sun coming up behind it; in the later morning with the sun hitting the water; at sunset; or even at night, with the lights spotlighting it.” |
Also on Till’s wish list was Mount Nemrut in Eastern Turkey, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. At the top of this mountain, King Antiochus I Theos built a tomb sanctuary of sorts, complete with stone figures of himself, lions and eagles, and various gods and heroes, including Alexander the Great, Zeus, Hercules, and Apollo. “I don’t know how they got those granite blocks up there,” Till marvels. “On the west side of the mountain, which is prone to earthquakes, all of the bodies are gone, but the heads are still there; on the east side, which had an identical set of figures, most of the bodies are still intact.” |
Photographing these mysterious stone statues near the peak proved much easier for Till than some of the other locations he had been in. “First of all, unlike most other sites in Turkey, which get crazy about you bringing in tripods and backpacks, they didn’t care if you had your gear on the mountain,” he says. “It was great to be able to shoot at both sunrise and sunset with my tripod and get that amazing warm light. Plus, because most of the tourists up there were there to see the sunrise and sunset, there weren’t a lot of people taking pictures of the statues.” |
The city of Pamukkale and the accompanying ruins of the ancient Byzantine city Hierapolis, also named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988, was one of Till’s final destinations before his trip back to the States. The area is renowned for its hot springs and travertine formations, white terraces formed from the calcium-carbonate-infused waters (“Pamukkale” literally means “cotton castle”). “It’s similar to Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park, but much bigger,” says Till. “You can see the formations from 20 miles away.” |
Today, thousands of tourists flock annually to this biblical destination to check out the classical ruins and on-site museum and to swim in the thermal Sacred Pool. “It used to be a huge ancient resort of sorts,” Till laughs. “They’d use the therapeutic mineral baths for bathing. The water is full of calcium carbonate, so it looks like Caribbean Sea water. The pools get especially blue in the middle of the day.” |
Because it’s so crammed with tourists (and they’re allowed to swim in the pools), Till faced the challenge of finding more serene shots of still waters. “The place is open 24 hours, and at this time of year, lots of visitors are going swimming,” he says. “I was able to get some good shots without people in the pools, but once again, I had to go handheld — no tripods allowed!” |
Tom plans to continue on his prolific photographic path around the world, mainly because he’s doing what he loves. “I’m a big believer in self-assignment, so almost everything I’ve done is what I want to do, where I want to go, and what I want to shoot,” he says. “It’s really great to be able to make a living that way.” |
And he’s got big plans for that 18-270 PZD lens as well. “I’m doing a project now where I’m shooting rock art in the Grand Canyon, photographing a lot of panels that haven’t been photographed before,” he says. “The process requires dropping down thousands of feet in elevation, and then going back up thousands of feet; many times, there aren’t even trails. That 18-270 PZD lens is going to be my mainstay for that adventure!” |
For more information on Tom Till’s work, go to www.tomtill.com. |