Istanbul (pic)

Last month I visited my daughter who lives in Istanbul.

While having lunch together at Ara's cafe I was impressed by the big B/W pictures adorning the walls. It were photo's made by Ara Güler, a famous Turkish photographer from Istanbul, former member of Magnum. He is (now 81 and living in Istanbul) a long time Leica-M photographer and befriended with a.o. HCB. Inspired by his pictures I took a different look to IstanbuL Here are some of the results, all M8 pictures.



Elmarit-M 90 mm



Istiklal Cadessi. Elmarit-M 21mm Asp



Eminönü Elmarit-M 90mm



Galata. Elmarit-M 21mm Asph



Ferry from Bostancı to Büyükada Summicron-M 35mm



Küçükpazar close to the Suleymanye Camii with view on the Golden Horn and Galata Bridge in the background Elmarit-M 21mm Asph

I am still working PP on my pictures from Istanbul so on my Flickr page there will be some addition with irregular intervals.

My other Istanbul pictures:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterih/sets/72157612206955335/

A happy new year for everybody with happy shooting.

Thanks for looking,
Cheers, Peter.

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterih/show

Peter, these are outstanding photos. I also looked at your album and I found it absolutely stunning! Great B/W shots with a very high IQ!... They have film quality to me! What camera did you use?
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Louis

Peter, a lovely series. I don't know Ara Güler's work, but if viewing them at a cafe was reason enough to inspire you, I'd have to assume you are a very "quick study".

I especially like the depth of field on your 21mm shots. As a result of everything being in focus, there is a much more interesting story within every image. The razor-sharp focus of the Noctilux'x which everyone seems to have received from Santa are good, but your images are refreshing to see here today.

I think you should visit your daughter more often!
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/12191517@N05/

L_Objectif said:

They have film quality to me! What camera did you use?
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Louis

Click to expand...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterih/4154719591/meta/in/set-72157612206955335

Leica Camera AG M8

PeterIH said:

Last month I visited my daughter who lives in Istanbul.........

Click to expand...

Thanks very much for your pictures, Peter. Beautifully composed and exposed. B&W is excellent. Istanbul is a heaven for photographers, is not it?. Best regards,
Eduardo

really great photos and amazing b&w conversions -- I especially like the composition and the tonality of the street car shot. did you do the conversions in photoshop or use a plugin of some sort?

i'm still trying to get really smooth, film-like black and white conversions out of my M9.

well done.

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http://www.fauxtography.com

Peter, these are superb! The third, fifth and sixth are my favorites from this set. I agree with Jeff - you should visit your daughter more often!

Cheers!
-raaj
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'Change is not Mandatory, you don't have to Survive...'

Thanks people for your very nice comments. And be sure, I will visit my daughter more often ;-).

As to the technical aspect: All are B/W conversions from RAW pictures. First development in Capture1. Next B/W conversions in PS CS2 via the 2 Hue/sat layer technique. I don't use other plugins, Tried Nik's Silver effex pro trial version but it was not precise enough to my taste. All PP is done on PS CS2 via selections and masks.

Thanks again,

Cheers,
Peter.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterih/show

Wonderful series, certainly with Ara's finger prints all over the place! He is one of the greatest living Leica master photographers, this year he was awarded the Lucie lifetime achievement award:

http://lucieawards.com/09/honorees/AraGuler.html

Orhan Pamuk's "Istanbul, Memories and the City" features his photographs documenting the now-long-gone Istanbul, extensively.

I enjoyed seeing your set here, and thinking about Guler's work again.

Ece

Thank you for sharing a wonderful series of photos. Is there any chance you can post some photos before B/W conversion?
Cheers!
All the best in 2010.

Thank you for your kind words. Glad you liked the pictures.

As for posting in colour: I am afraid that that will be rather difficult. It would mean that I have to do all the PP over again. Like you can see on my Flickr pages I am a B/W devotee. After RAW dev in Capture One and PP in PS CS2 (in which the B/W conversion is the first step) I flatten the image and throw away the mask channels. Saving the resulting picture as a 16 bits greyscale TIFF. In that way a picture takes around 20MB space on my disks typically. (of course I keep the original DNG as well). Saving with all layers and masks would result in a file of 200-300 MB, And then even a 1 TB disk is all of a sudden rather small :-( So I am affraid that I cannot fall back on a colour version. Sorry.

Cheers,
Peter
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterih/show

Ece,

Thank you for your very kind words.

When in Istanbul I bougt the book you mentioned: "Ara Gülers Istanbul" with the foreword by Orhan Pamuk. A wonderfull book and IMHO a must have for all B/W Leicafistas.

My daughter visited us here in the Netherlands for Christmas and gave me another book by Güler: It is a Turkish publication (with texts in Turkish and English) titled: "Ara Güler". ISBN 975-98089-5-1 This book contains also coloured work from him on his travels abroad in the far East.

And you are right; he is one of the very great photographers of the second half of the 20th century. He was awarded the French Legion d'honneur in 2002, and a honourary doctorate from the Yildiz technical university in 2004 as well as numerous other prizes and awards. Personal acquainted with HCB and Ansel Adams. A very inspirational man.

Cheers!
Peter
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterih/show