Asur At Dawn, Aegean Coast Turkey

This image was captured during one of my many trips to Turkey.
I set out just after dawn to walk along the beach to explore and capture anything that took my fancy in the glourious if not a little harsh morning light.
I had only walked for less than 5 minutes when I noticed this gentleman who I later discovered was called Asur sat smoking a cigarette enjoying the beautiful morning over Gumbet bay.
After a few nods to each other I decided to approach him to ask if I may take his picture.
He spoke no english and my limited Turkish was not any good but we got by and I positioned him with an iconic Gulet in the background.
He must have enjoyed his 5 mins of fame as he insisted I take more images of him on the balcony of the hotel beach bar he worked for !
I returned a year later with some prints but never saw him again.

A Defining Image from the 70’s

If it’s possible for an image of somebody to somehow define you then this is the image I’d choose.

This is an old print of my Dad with his Leica camera around his neck,shot I believe in Ephesus Turkey while on a cruise of the Aegean during the early 1970’s.

This image is a draw for me for a couple of reasons. My Dad loved photography and always had camera gear around the house while I was growing up and this without doubt aided my early interest.

Another passion I inherited was his love of ancient Greece & Turkey and all it’s history & myths.It’s this that sent me travelling around Greece during my teens armed with his “borrowed” camera gear that acted as the catalyst to taking up photography as a career 26 years ago.

So when I look at this age stained old print it kind of sums me up, in fact all that’s really missing from this scene would be a Vespa or Lambretta parked up and a kid kicking a football and it would define me almost perfectly.

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Watchtower of Turkey

Beautiful video of Turkey showing the people & amazing locations well worth a watch.

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Boy In The Bay

I captured this image while out for a stroll one evening during my recent trip to Turkey.
It’s not often these days that I go out and just follow my nose with my camera and rarer still that I don’t use a tripod.
Most of my work these days is fairly planned out at least to some point or other so to go out and simply walk & explore is bliss. This takes me back to a time when I was learning my trade and the camera was welded to my eyelid wherever I went!
It was a beautiful evening and I came across 3 young lads jumping off a small wooden pier into the bay at Gumbet.
It wasn’t long before they spotted my camera and started to play to the camera which would normally be my cue to pack away. I decided however the light was just too good to walk away and besides I was simply enjoying the fun too much and getting too many great captures to end it.
Despite being grab shots the images still got a good dose of post production to help portray the mood of this beautiful sunset over the Aegean.

Bellydancer In Blue

I have finally found time since returning from my trip to Turkey to go through some of the images I captured.
This one titled “Bellydancer In Blue” is one of several portraits I managed to shoot during my trip and was a fortunate grab shot on a boat.
I mentioned in my previous post about a Gulet trip myself and a friend took and this chap (yep look closely)  was captured entertaining on board.
More portraits to follow as time permits..it’s a very busy month of assignments!

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Turkish Car Parks & Cruising the Aegean

I’m writing this after a day cruising the Aegean coast in Turkey.
Myself and a friend spent a rather stressful day yesterday checking on my villa which was purchased seven years ago.
The site has taken a long time to complete due to various issues and each year I visit often find some major issue.
A couple of years ago I found it full of bar furniture ..which of course was not mine! Another year it was badly flooded and it goes on and on.
So you can imagine I was dreading what delights might be waiting for me this year.
Even by Turkish standards what I found even shocked me which was to find a car park built where my large garden once stood!
After some frantic calls and some checks it was confirmed that not all of my very large garden was actually owned by myself and the previous owner had decided to grab some extra land !
So after some checks and the matter cleared up my blood pressure was reduced. This was especially helped with the good news that the site now is finally nearing completion.
With all of yesterday fun we decided a little sailing on the Aegean had been well and truly earn’t to chill out and take a few pics.

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Turkish Tony

Here once again in Turkey checking on our villa and catching up with some old friends.
I met Fatih Toran or “Turkish Tony” as we refer to him some 7 years ago and has become a good friend.

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Another guy we have known for several years is Otern who is a local guy with fingers in many pies !

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A stunning photography location the Gumbet Windmills

A stunning photography location, the Gumbet Windmills

I travel to Turkey quite a lot and I’m fortunate to have a home there from which to explore the many areas of historical interest and is a fabulous photography location.

On this particular trip, I left my friends to enjoy an evening meal together and borrowed my Turkish friend’s car to travel & capture the Windmills in the beautiful evening light.
The Windmills are located on a headland high above the bays of Gumbet and Bodrum and give a wonderful view over the sea and mountains. I’d been told about this location many times by Turkish friends but unfortunately, on arrival, I found it a little disappointing compared to the vision that I had built up in my mind.

I decided that seeing I was not being commissioned to capture scenery photography and to shoot a faithful representation of the place that I would stay true to my own vision (as I often do) of this beautiful location by moving a few elements around and clean the place up a little with some highend retouching.


My main disappointment at the location was the fact that the stunning view behind the windmills was not clearly visible so I decided to rectify this by raising the sea & mountains.
This was accomplished by capturing the precise images I needed than in post cleaning out a couple of the more derelict windmills so that the view could be seen behind.
This image was also made into an image retouching training Video called “Moving Mountains”

 

 

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Turkey 2009 Images for Prophotoinsights Video Training, View from Peninsular between Gumbet & Bodrum where windmills are located.