Okay... Here Comes a Dump Part 1, K?

Okay.... I'm way behind in my posting. Here're four that I've recently done that seem just about unrelated in any way... sigh...  As usual, click on any image for a larger view.

1. Here's a runner in this April's Race Against Racism.

2. Here's you-know-who...

3. Here's one of the grand nieces... Katelyn Rose flirting with her Daddy...

4. Here's a bearable moment... At the office...

There will be more... Gotta' catch up. Wheeeeee!

Aura °14: Narrative

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Photographic art is a

Perpetually running

Narrative machinery.

The Aura Series.... °14: Narrative

"There is no reality...

Only perception." - _Dr. Phil_

Face paint guy... Race Against Racism: Lancaster, Pa

Canon 7D: Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens, PS4: Topaz 5, OnOne, PerfectEffects 3, AlienSkin: Exposure 4. Custom motion filters, custom brushes.

Mono By Three

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And here's a bigger version, click to enlarge it.

Some animals fail
To see in color
Which may mean that they
Can know things that
People may never
Know.


For over forty years I shot overwhelmingly in B&W denied spontaneous access to colors by the complexity of processing and a kid's wallet. So now, when I see artists working in monochrome I wonder why they've performed such serious surgery on their imaginations. But... but... sometimes I hear a tiny voice,

"Ted," it whispers... "remember me? Remember when we were more than friends for countless hours in an orange-dark room? Remember my scent of Dektol and how my fixer turned your fingernails a mottled mahogany? Remember how I left my traces on your clothes,,, spotted and smelly? And remember how I revealed your imagination in those steel pans? You do," the voice cooed.... "You do remember me...."

Lancaster's _Race Against Racism_ April, 2012... A contestant warms her hands against the early spring chill... Canon 7D: Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens, Spot Focus. PS4: custom layering, AlienSkin: Exposure 4: Tri-X, pushed four stops.

Auras 12: Samantha Grace

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I guess I could not allow her sister Katelyn Rose to steal away her christening party day, right? But babies are soooooo hard to photograph. If you could only get 'em to sing and dance - then... then... you'd have something to capture, right? Okay... Here's Samantha #2. Wuddaya think? Infant picture hints anyone?

Aura11: Perception

Auras °5: Noise In The Neurons

Auras filter facts

Through the soapstone

Of feelings and Myths

To become what

We understand even

When we don't

Know... answers.

The Aura Series °5: Noise In The Neurons

*

Self portrait

Canon 7D, Canon EFS 17-85 (f4.5-5.6), PS4: Custom brushes, AlienSkin: Bokey 2, Topaz Adjust 5, AlienSkin Exposure4 - Custom texturing layers.

Aura °3

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Auras filter facts
Through the soapstone
Of feelings and myths
To become what
We understand even
When we don’t
Know… Answers.


The Aura Series…. °3

Lancaster, PA – Street portrait

Canon 7D, Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens, PS4: Custom texture/brushes, Toos: AlienSkin Bokeh 2, Topaz Adjust 5, AlienSkin Exposure 4

Auras °2

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Aura filters facts
Through the soapstone
Of feelings and myths
To become what
We understand even
When we don’t
Know… Answers.

Lancaster, PA – Street portrait
An exploration of aura °2
Canon 7D, Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens, PS4: Custom texture/brushes, Toos: AlienSkin Bokeh 2, Topaz Adjust 5, AlienSkin Exposure 4

Auras °1

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Aura filters facts
Through the soapstone
Of feelings and myths
To become what
We understand even
When we don’t
Know… Answers

Lancaster, PA… Tea Party
An exploration of aura °1

Canon 7D, Canon EF-S 10-22mm (f3.5-4.5), PS4: Custom texture/brushes, Toos: AlienSkin Bokeh 2, Topaz Adjust 5, AlienSkin Exposure 4

Not Whether... How?

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Minutes till start.
Done it before.
Can do it better.
Will!

Not whether…
How?

Canon 7D, Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens 300mm, f5.61/60, ISO 360, hand-held

PS4: Custom texture, PerfectPhotoSuite6, Topaz Adjust 6: custom settings,

Burst Of Swagger

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Escape? Lemme tell ya’…
That’s what you paid for…

Trample the detonator to throttle
A screeching stench of tearing rubber…
Neck-snapping…
Fantasy rush.

Each one of these babies came
With a full charge of swagger.

Say every girl didn’t swoon
At this rocketing past…

Hell…
You believed it…
And perception… that’s a
Big-assed part of truth.
Right?

Were you mistaken?
Like, you gotta’ know,
If you don’t make mistakes…
You ain’t making nothin’.

After that reckless feeling that came with each of these cars… The guy-fantasy of pulling on a super-hero costume that made little-pimply you invisible inside it’s sleek exoskeleton. Every fourteen year old boy’s cloak of seduction. Within this beast you were the rocker who became a movie star with an explosive ball of light beneath your foot. Or at least you figured you’d be all of that if somehow.. you could only grow up to buy one.

Canon 40D, Table top art, PS4: custom filters, AlienSkin: SnapArt3: Water Color, Alien Skin Bokeh2: Custom settings, Exposure4 – custom effects.

Love-Worned and Abandoned

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Sad how it seems
When your past forms your dreams
Of that time when
Wishes came true.

Then no one was lonely
Back when love was there only
For you.

What is more poignant than a lonesome little thing dreaming – of finding one more hug? She stood there tagged in life’s shadows… Eyes closed… dreaming of what? New love? Old love? Any…. love?

Canon 40D, PS4: AlienSkin Exposure 4, Custom textures

Chris Herr's Rotary Memorial Resolution

Rotary asked me to compose and read a memorial resolution for my friend Chris Herr. Fearing I'd break up as I read it, instead I pulled together this short slideshow. Hope it links properly here. Lemme know, K?

A Tree Grows In Ephesus

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Its roots growing into a Grecian cellar, its limbs embracing a Latinate erection… A tree thrives in the Turkish air above what was once… the greatest city of its age… second only in size to Rome.

And now the mighty port city, trapped miles inland from the Aegean…. houses only marble ghosts… And trees like this that suckle upon subterranean leavings of empires down where legends feed the hungry roots.

Canon 7D, PS4, Topaz Adjust 5, Perfect Photo Suite

Found a Tree In Ephasus

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Paradise Panels

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What is the difference
Between picturing
A truck and
Pondering
Truckiness?

And if something
Is trucky yet just
Pieces of
Things that are
Trucky-like
Have we then
Merely pondered
Trucks?

The truck ruins sit garaged, or barned in a place nearby to Paradise, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. And since I found it in parts… it seemed best displayed… in panels, huh?

great big

Canon G10, PS4, Topaz Adjust 5, Custom photo-pop brushes and texture screens.

Rockier Still

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Well, it's interesting to discover from the mail I've received about the Cappadocia Fairy Chimneys that most people were, like me, unaware of them. Fact is they were a delightful surprise when my host bought us there. Apparently Turkey has a treasure here that so many have never heard of. Unfortunately for me our schedule got us there at the worst time of day for the sun was glaring down almost directly. Oh well... That's what a lifetime of technical experience prepares us for, right?

So... here's a three shot pano with some heavy PhotoShop lifting to recover the dynamic range sufficiently so that shadows and highlights are not terribly lost. It's a bit more detailed than my previous Fairy Tunnel explorations.

Canon 7D, Pano stitched together in PS4.

Winter Nears Blue Ball

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When you’re in summer,
The warm goes on forever
And winter’s little more than
A figment at day’s end.

When you’re in winter
Each wind is much colder than
The memory of summer’s
Way of making things live.

Near Blue Ball, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania

Canon G10, PS4, Topaz, AlienSkin: SnapArt, Water Color, Custom textures and brushes.

Fairy Tale

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There’s a living space
Behind a tree
Dug in the rock face
Where fairies lived.



Or that’s what they say
To explain it
There off the roadway
Long here abandoned.

Empty of all proof
Of the digger’s
Not really being
An ancient fairy.

Some Fairy Chimneys of Cappadocia, Turkey.

Canon 7D, 4 image pano, PS4: Custom textures and brushes, Topaz Adjust 5, Alien Skin: Xenofex2: Fluffy Clouds, Exposure 4: Jaws Color Shift: Custom Adjustments. Custom plaster filter.

Good Morning Florence

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An oarsman snaps
His way along the
Mirrored Arno.

The light enwraps
Its coat over the
Ancient feeling.

Canon 40D, PS4: custom brushes, Topaz, AlienSkin: Exposure4: Color Slide: Agfa RSXII 100 <- My favorite film ever!

Pepper Fears Children

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It’s seventy years since
A nasty kid
Broke off her Salt’s head
And left him dying
In a puddle of powder.

Now she peers wildly
Maddened by the nearest giggle
Hoping to hide from
Hands unable to tell
Play from cruelty.

Canon 7D, PS4: Topaz Adjust5, Alien Skin: Bokeh 2, Exposure 4: Kodachrome II (1962-1974), Custom pop-spot texturing.

The Right To Bare Arms?

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Men2Mountains: 2011... This is the Potter County, Pennsylvania hunting camp. Here's an All-American and an Eagle Scout. The guy in the blue vest's swimming record still holds at William and Mary College... the guy mugging it up in the orange hat's just earned his Eagle Scout. BTW, that's my buddy Chris Herr in that blue vest... Looking healthy and happy just a handful of time back at his Lucky 7 hunting lodge on a chilly morning. S morning FAR to cold to bare anything but fingers. Yep... in that cold it's just not right to bare arms.

Incidentally, the dazzling color's enhanced by AlienSkin's impressive new Exposure4. I used the pre-set for Color Films and applied Fuji Pro 160C... a classic recipe that always popped the multi-chromatic range up. Then I selectively cranked back the red saturation in the skin tones in PS4. The overall effect is POW-erful, don't you think? The tonal range SINGS!

At 10 mm the Canon EF-S 10-22mm imposes a chromatic fringe that needs to be death with in post processing. You can't see it here in the jpg, but when you pop the suckers up... there's a neon effect that's not-pleasantly startling. Still, while it takes a bit of time, it's easily dealt with in PhotoShop.

GEEK Stuff.... Canon 7D, Canon EF-S 10-22mm (f3.5-4.5) at 10m, PS4: custom brushes and filters, AlienSkin: Exposure4, Color Films: Fuji 160C, Topaz 4: Custom.

Chris Left This Morning...

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My friend Chris’s body stopped
this morning…
But a spirit in motion
stays in motion.

RIP, Chris Herr 1939-2011

In the Blue Mosque, Istanbul, Turkey (June, 2011)
Canon 7D: Extreme crop (20%), PS4, Alien Skin: BlowUp3, SnapArt3, Oil. Custom textures & Brushes.

Euro!

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Kübler-Ross model: Second stage of grief….
Canon 7D, PS4: Custom textures * brushes, Topaz: Adjust 5, SnapArt3: Stylize.

Hope Hardens

Angels pardon
Until they’re staid
Then hope hardens
Then dreams fade.

Have you noticed that regardless of its profundity, an idea clearly – unambiguously – rendered is likely to be dismissed as a banal cliché? Critics cherish ambiguity…

Images… Backyard fantasy light, Lancaster, Pa. 2011

Canon 7D, PS4: Custom textures, AlienSkin Bokeh2 to simulate Canon 50mm f/1.2 @f/1.2, AlienSkin: Exposure 4, Agfachrome 1000 RS, Custom watercolor soft bristle brushes & point-pop texture sharpening,

AlienSkin Demo

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The folks at AlienSkin have asked me to test a number of the pieces of their wonderfully integrated family of filters. The most recent I received is Exposure4 which allows me to mimic the grain/dynamic range of dozens of classic B&W and polychrome films. I've also recently received their powerful upgraded version 3 of SnapArt. Previously I showed you how their BlowUp allows a virtual artist to grow the size of an image with minimal degradation.

So, I grabbed an image I took at at the historic Landis Valley Farm Museum with a 3Mpxl LC cellphone. Then I worked it through the faded Polaroid pre-sets in Exposure3, augmented it farther into a pastel in SnapArt3, then finally blew the small image up 150% in BlowUp3. About ten minutes of work from open in PS4 through posting here.

Here's the virgin image.... So? Whuddaya think?

Antalya to Konya

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Somewhere in the hills
Of Turkey lies
The debris
Of wandering
Civilizations.

Turkey well on the road to Konya from Antalya. Canon 7D, PS4: custom textures, AlienSkin: SnapArt3: Crayon, custom brushes. My classic Ford truck.


Of course that's my cool desktop TOY1931 classic Ford Model Aclassic, right?

NOW FOR SOMETHING DIFFERENT?



Here's my first experiment with the all new Topaz Adjustment5: Dusk. Whuddayaa think?

It's Beginning To Look A Lot...

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Soon the bells will start
But the wonder-filled sight that will spring
Is the glow that will quietly ring
Deep within your heart.

Sometimes they cloy… but we can’t help it because… Darn… we clutch at hooks to which we can hang an order, a map, an understanding…. a life. Here’s my moose-ical hook.

I found this little orphaned-guy on the shelf at a Goodwill shop years ago. He was tattered... stained here and there... but his grin was so optimistic. Look at him, and like a switch, you smile, right? Someone had breathed that into this ball of wrapped stuffing. I wonder where he is today. Wherever, his aura's here... and there with you, right? Okay, it's corny but still... still... Magical, don't you think?

Canon 7D, PS4: AlienSkin: Bokeh 2, SnapArt3: Watercolor, Custom textures & brushes.

Basilica Cistern

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Lost for centuries beneath the streets of Constantinople the Sunken Palace was rediscovered by the Ottoman Turks to water their magnificent Topkapi Palace. Built from parts from his collapsing Western Roman Empire by Justinian in the sixth century, the structure absorbed the work of over 7,000 slaves.
Fed by a twelve mile distant aqueduct and still a working engineering masterpiece, the spooky lighting flickers over crystal waters broken by the tails of cavorting fish. The space is huge and detailed with the work of the ancient buildings whose columns and arches were mined for this stunning yet mysteriously hushed Istanbul masterpiece.
Istanbul, about 500 feet Southwest and fifty two steps below Turkey’s breathtaking Hagia Sophia.
Canon 7D, PS4, Topaz, AlienSkin: Exposure: Agfachrome, custom textures and
brushes.

Catty Story

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(H) air conditined?

Izmir street story... Does it tell itself?

Canon 7D: PS 4, custom brushes and spot textures, Topaz

Fairy World 2

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The ancient fairy chimneys of Cappadocia, Turkey. Squint as the sun sets and you can almost see them flitting among their homes.

Canon 7D: PS4: 3 frame pano, Topaz, custom brushes and sky texture

Halloween Hand

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Can the
Costumes of
Daytime
Become the
Magnets of
The night
Time
Stalker?
Bwa-Hah-Hah-Haaaaaaaaaa!

Canon 7D, New York City, All sorts of PS/Topaz/AlienSkin/Textures... Wheeeee!

Birthday Tale

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Nothing special I guess, but I needed a birthday card for a child that could later be framed for her room. Of course if you gave it to your friend, child, grandchild... You'd make up the story to tell which will be remembered every time the card is revisited. I imagine it in a frame on a bedside table that will support a trip to dreamland, over and over... :-)

Technicolor Sunrise

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The mosquitos were big as birds as the sun rose over Chatham beach here on Cape Cod... Well, that's how they felt. The buggers seemed to hit like bean bags as they drilled into me. I'd been out of my car maybe four minutes as I grabbed at this pano then dashed back ahead of the snarling swarm. I still can't decide if they resented my arrival or welcomed it like a hungry lion herd felt when they stumbled upon a lonely wildebeest. I think I've left less blood behind when I've donated the stuff at the hospital.

Anywayzzzz.... you can see from the virgin images which I tugged into this pano below that the photos could have used more time for color balancing, even straightening, huh? What's more the Coast Guard station there in Chatham (the Atlantic Ocean's on the other side of that dune the building sits upon) was way small thanks to the perspective of my wide angle lens. So, how to create a powerful image that didn't look enhanced?

Well, first off I stripped away the blue and warmed everything up by color balancing the image with the curves tool, then added a warming color filter layer that I first blocked then brushed into the appropriate areas. Then I teased the building larger and moved it a tad leftward to honor the rule of thirds. It took a bit of time to hide the seams from both that move, that enlargement and of course the lines where PS merged the three pano panes. If I'd had more time, I'd have balanced the three original exposures more carefully when I took them but those bugs were spattering off my body and worse... attacking my eyes. EEEEEEP!

Then there was the straightening problem. So I used the ruler tool and aligned the roof line to vertical, bringing the entire frame into balance. After that came the relative dynamic ranges needed to balance the lower half of the image with the sky. All done with adjustment layers of course. Additional adjustment layers allowed me to brush back in the highlights in the grasses so they both sparkled and pulled the eye toward the building.

What I was after was a classic sunrise image where the enhancements, while considerable, were invisible. Did it happen? Does the final image at the top create the illusion of authenticity? Hope so... One of the reasons I enjoy enahced phtographic art is that the tools let me reveal what my feelings want to find in an image. And sometimes create ImageFiction. Which of course is the um, clever name of this blogsite, right? :-)

Cannon 7D, Canon EF-S 10-22mm (f3.5-4.5) Handheld three panel pano. PS4.

Dream Keeper

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There’s a place that you keep
All your world that it seems
Glows dark as you sleep
Filled full with your dreams.


Fall: East Denis, Cape Cod, New England
Canon 20D • PS4: custom textures/brushes, AlienSkin: SnapArt, Watercolor

Almost Autumn

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In moments
It seems
They’ll burst.

Leaves afire
To sear
Your eyes.

And your heart
But not
Till then.

In moments?

***
Chatham, Cape Cod, Massachusetts
Canon 7D, PS4: pano, Topaz, Custom feelings

To The Soul

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In a moment
When lights
Catch.


Eyes window
Outward
In.

Izmir, Turkey
Canon 7D, PS4: Custom filters, Topaz, AlienSkin: Bokeh2, BlowUp3 (Beta), Custom textures.

Now for the fun. Here's the virgin image from my FlashCard. Okay...

Now... NOTE: While I do not work for them, I was invited to beta test by AlienSkin. Their not-yet-released BlowUp3 allowed me to carve an approximate 20% section from this image and enlarge it without degradation to 36" on the horizontal edge. It’s a stunning technology, Huh?

Bosporus Bustle

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Gilt party boats
Crazy sway
In waves and wind.

A two arm gap
Over an
Ancient alley.

Istanbul, behind the Blue Mosque
Mixed Media, Canon 7D, PS4: custom brushes and textures, Topaz, Alien Skin: SnapArt: pastels.

In Konya There's An Emerald

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The sky was lit by the splendor of the moon
So powerful I fell to the ground
Your love has made me sure
I am ready to forsake this worldly life
and surrender to the magnificence of your Being.
– Mowlana Jalaluddin Rumi

In Konya there’s a museum
Its emerald glow
Remembers its poet.
Its poet remembers
The moon…

Open the love window.
The moon won’t use the door,
only the window.

– Mowlana Jalaluddin Rumi

Here’s The Rumi Museum
Looking over Konya, Turkey




Canon 7D: PS4: Custom filters & brushes, Topaz, AlienSkin: SnapArt – Impasto: Custom texture.

Dawn At Whalebone Mansion

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Wealth from whales
They thought – was
Forever.

Hope unsullied by
Knowledge of
Scarcity
Or pain.

Momentary hope without
Maturity or experience
Is nestled upon
Ignorance.

Sunrise
The Penniman House
A captain’s mansion
Chatham, Cape Cod, Massachusetts

We vacationed in New England last month, just before flying to Turkey on what was more a business trip. Of course dawn on Cape Cod always sings to me an hour or so before it rises. And it pulls me out to ride or walk the back roads, this morning in Chatham which is on the Atlantic side of the Cape. From the chanticleer above the Penniman House you can see the sweep of Chatham harbor behind me as I took this image.

Canon 7D:3 part pano, PS4: Custom brushes and textures, Topaz, AlienSkin: Snap Art 3, impasto

Antalya, Turkey

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The old town’s
Ancient port
Bobs atop the
Mediterranean.

Antalya, Turkey
Canon 7D, PS4: 8 image pano stitch, Topaz

His Eyes

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Hot day
Fresh air
Fresher…
Gaze.

Izmir, Turkey
Canon EOS 7D,Canon EF-S17-185mm, f/5.4, 1/160, ISO 400, PS4

Her Eyes

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"If only
He’d put away
The damned camera
AAARGH!"

Antalya, Turkey – Duden Waterfalls
Canon 7D, PS4: custom brushes/textures, Topaz

Now of course if he had a Canon, he’d be taking pictures of her, right?

Hagia Sophia

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Constantine built it
Fifth century.
Muslim repurposed it.
Now it’s a museum.
Making history is
Making a future…
We are part of
The future’s past.

The Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey
Canon 7D, PS4: custom brushes, filters, Topaz.

Very dim light… mysteriously pierced.

Turkey Notes - Istanbul Morning

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The morning call
Echoes from
Mosque to mosque.
A soprano melody
Along the city bustle
Melody line.

I took notes – with my Canon. Jotting onto FlashCards: my feelings. And of course in Istanbul, you feel the morning pull you awake. Is the city always sunny? dunno... but we never saw rainy clouds in July anywhere in the country. Of course it was mid summer and it was hot. Surprisingly there were palm trees in Istanbul. Since it sits at about the same latitude as Lancaster, we were told that the weather was comparable. But a palm tree would freeze its coconuts off here in the Red Rose city. Maybe it's because Istanbul pokes into both the Black Sea and the Med that it's warmer in winter? Anyone know?

Notice the buses in this scene. Istanbul has a spectacular public transit grid of mixed buses trolleys and light rail together with a bustling taxi and limo industry. The things are crowded at all hours. SRO... But with maybe 19 million people living in the city, a tad of crowding is expected, huh?

Last point... I tried to make this, at least in part, about the neighborhood mosque where the Imam chants/sings the morning call to prayer. And that is an interesting point. It was explained that while Turkey is a secular nation without a state church, the government does erect mosques and hires the imams who I suppose are sensitive to the um... sensitivities... of the interests of the place from which their checks come? Dunno, but it's an interesting arrangement.Actually the prayer call coming from the loud speakers on most minarets is a peaceful background sound, much like the peeling of church bells.

Istanbul, Turkey – Monday morning
Canon 7D, PS4: pano stitch, custom brushes, filters, Topaz, Alien Skin: SnapArt: Impasto, Custom textures.