Rajasthan, back for more.

We leave for Delhi next week to begin a 10-day photography workshop around the historic cities of Agra and Jaipur, Pushkar and Jodhpur, in Rajasthan. It will be a fantastic tour as Andy and I visited the region exactly 12 months ago as a recce trip and absolutely loved it. India is slightly special, as it is a whole new continent of colours, experience and culture for all of us.

The Istanbul trip was a high, for everyone that came along. Istanbul Edge, the book I had put together with the best selection of photographs from all our participants is a treat, and I must say will be hard to surpass! And we made great friends too.

It's photography, not rocket science

A stolen kiss, Bosphorus © Steven Lee

Having come back from our Istanbul photo workshop for a week now, I am able to contemplate how it all went, and how all 9 of our participants had a wonderful time, photographing in new surroundings. Being in an exotic and photogenic city like Istanbul had been a great catalyst for creativity. The challenge however is to continue photographing creatively at home, in more familiar circumstances. It is often said that one does not need to travel for miles across continents to get good photographs, and yes, there is some truth in that. However, as travel broadens the mind, it also broadens the visual vocabulary within our minds, helped by recognising new and unfamiliar situations, colours, people, architecture and scale.

In 'scale' I mean an imaginary comfort zone of the ability to handle the camera proficiently by the photographer and the subject. ie. how comfortable one is to photographing in public. As a visitor to a foreign city, photographing as a tourist get can you quite far, in terms of approach. A smile, a gentle nod of the head can open doors to wonderful street portraits. The ability to recognise interesting compositions in new cities perhaps comes from typical guide books and postcards. We instinctively see 'postcard' images first because we are familiar with it. Unfortunately, that isn't how it is in our home cities, I usually find. We are often afraid or timid to even hold our spanking new DSLRs out in the open in public let alone find interesting subjects to photograph, for fear of robbery, theft or God forbid, accidentally dropping it!

If one masters the operational aspects of the camera, then the picture taking part becomes easier. Less fiddling, and more shooting.

Minaret, Blue Mosque © Steven Lee

It usually takes some time, for me, to get into the 'zone'. During our trip, it took me at least 24 hours before I began to see pictures. And another 36 hours to decide on the theme of my 'mini-assignment'.

Iron gate, Blue Mosque © Steven Lee

My eureka moment only came when I was walking back to our hotel alone from the waterfront at 11:30pm on the third evening, shooting the sodium lit streets and monuments with a compact, set to black and white and a high ISO. The streets which were teeming with tourists and locals, traffic and noise, only hours before had turned silent and eerily still. The Hippodrome I was walking on alone, now known as the Sultanahmet Meydani was contructed by Emperor Septimus Severus in AD 203 when the city was called Byzantium. Built as a horse and chariot track for sport and leisure, it was estimated to hold 10,000 spectators along its U-shaped configuration. Now, a soft orange glow lights up the park and garden which stands adjacent to the Blue Mosque, it feels totally surreal to me.

Hippodrome Obelisk at night © Steven Lee

We always set a mini-assignment on our workshops. It helps to focus the mind through a concerted effort on the part of the photographer, to enable creative thinking, story telling and fine editing. All the participants' assignment slideshows can be seen here. I think they all did particularly well, including the few who have literally picked up a digital camera just months ago.

Thinking Inside the Box

The Young Turks, aka "Edgies" outside the steps leading to the courtyard of the Blue Mosque, Istanbul. Thank you all for joining Andy and I in Istanbul. We had a fantastic time there sharing an enjoying your company and the raki too. I probably won't eat a kebab for a long while, and the fish at KIYI is most memorable.

Turkish delight

I met Salim, a local Turk, fishing off the Galata bridge this morning at 6:30 AM. He is fishing off the bridge along with several other seemingly 'regulars'. The fish, little sprats, they catch is sweet to the taste he told me. From our brief 10 minute conversation, in broken English, hand-gestures and lots of head nodding, I gathered he used to be in the Turkish navy, in the 50's, and had been to Singapore and Beijing during his service.



This was our early morning shoot on Day 2. The group got up at 5:30 AM and left our hotel to photograph dawn breaking from the bridge. It was magical. Photographers often speak of the Golden Hour, which is 1 hour after sunrise and before sunset. The light seemed to change upon every minute we were on the bridge, looking out towards the Bosphorus.


A giant cruise ship, the Queen Victoria had docked across the Beyoglu side Istanbul, and the local ferry boats were spewing out morning commuters from the port every few minutes, disappearing into the narrow streets and alleys, like ants searching for their food. A lone fisherman stood precariously on a heaving floating jetty, bobbing up and down in the huge waves that often crashed along the embankment caused by the ferry boats.


Back on the bridge, we encountered friendly and obliging locals, who allowed us to photograph them. We sampled tea and pastry from the passing vendors that ply its length.



Last night, the review of the group's first day of selected photographs were projected onto a white bed sheet taped up onto Andy's hotel room wall. The word of the weekend is definitely 'edgy' to describe non-cliche, 'experimental' or even accidental images that a few of us had taken. We looked through many tilted horizons, unintentional blurs and raw urban photographs and a few of us discovered that interesting photography doesn't have to be perfectly executed and sharp images all the time.

Young Turks

The Egyptian Obelisk at the Hippodrome © Steven Lee

Revealing the interiors of the the magnificent Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia Basilica is a real challenge, but our participants sailed through their tasks today with flying colours.

We set mini tasks ahead, the first was setting manual exposure controls with an external light meter and judging exposure values and combination manually instead of relying on the built-in meters in our cameras.

The Blue Mosque was already teaming with visitors from all over the world and by 10am the queue of tourists groups circled the huge courtyard as we photographed the amazing minarets and arches within it. The mosque was built on the commission of Sultan Ahmet I in early 1600's and remains one of the most famous in the world, with the interior dome and walls completely tiled with the signature Iznik floral tiles.

Inside the Blue Mosque © Steven Lee

Young Turkish women strolling outside the Blue Mosque gardens © Steven Lee

Following a light lunch at a roadside restaurant alongside the Hippodrome, we set off for the Hagia Sophia. Built as a church around 530 AD by Emperor Justinian, this 1,400 year old building is one of the world's greatest architectural achievements. In the 15th century the Ottomans converted it into a mosque but some important religious artwork and mosaics still remain under its huge dome.

Hagia Sophia © Steven Lee

It is often said that the reward at the end will test your patience. How true is this. Photographing in crowded places where everyone is aiming their cameras at similar targets only result in repetitive imagery. The challenge is to find that sweet spot where hand, eye and heart unite in an instant to make that special photograph. Try and try, often the moment is elusive. Surprises also come in small and large doses. After spending and hour inside the Blue Mosque and another good hour at the Hagia Sophia, a few of us developed 'shutter fatique', and could shoot no more, including myself.

The results of the group after Day 1 shooting astounded Andy and I. Our Young Turks have surpassed even themselves. And you know who you all are.

Merhaba! Istanbul

Merhaba! Istanbul.

The group has finally assembled at the Garden House hotel in Sultanahmet, despite a few of us having literally to traverse across the world from Asia to be here, and some traveled through Europe by bus and plane for 12 hours due to the Belgian air strike yesterday.

Most fittingly, East meeting West in this magnificent city. The Sultanahmet area is the old part of the City where narrow cobbled streets crisscross in a tightly packed half a square mile, just south of the Blue Mosque and the Haghia Sophia. We are literally a couple of hundred meters from the Hippodrome, the oldest part of Istanbul, built in 230AD, during the reign of Roman Emperor Septimus, and made famous by Charlton Heston in the flick Ben Hur racing horse drawn chariots.

The hotel has a shady dining courtyard, and we had our intros over drinks coupled with a make-shift slide show projected onto the off white plastered perimeter wall, to the amusement of the local staff.

Istanbul : East Meets West

In 2 weeks time, I will be in spending 5 days in the great city of Istanbul, Turkey along with Andy Craggs and our workshop participants.

I visited Istanbul in 1998, on a 10 day tour which took me to the shores of Gallipoli, where many casualties were taken during WW1 when the British and French army joined by their Australian and Kiwi counterparts fought the Ottoman Turks which failed. This Campaign was made into a movie of the same name and launched the career of a very young fresh actor called Mel Gibson.

I also visited Izmir further south, Ephesus, and Pamukkale, with the amazing white terraces of calcium carbonate cliffs.

I am really looking forward to seeing and photographing Istanbul again, with a fresh eye on things. The city is the literally split up between Europe and Asia, and sits on the tip of the European continent. The busy Bosphorus river is the lifeline of Istanbul as it brought in trade by sea from places as far as China and India during the Ottoman years and also beyond that, when it was the centre of Christianity founded under Emperor Constantine. Not surprising since it was also known as The Second Rome.