Pebbles From Paradise

Two Thousand And Eight: Great! As you can see Amazon is welcoming the New Year in rainbow colours, and indeed I am feeling pretty chuffed with the colours of nature here today. A quick jog to the shore provided this photo-opportunity to catch the light celebrating on the peaks on the opposite side of Amos [...]

On The Night Bus Some of you may remember the image above, which was taken last year with the Panasonic Leica Summilux 1.4 on a coach to Ankara. The photograph below, which shares some qualities of that image, however, was taken last night at home using my manual focus OM Zuiko 24mm lens. The quality [...]

Dear Readers, I wouldn’t wish you to think that the sun always shines in Amos. Today when I looked from the patio-deck I noted that not only was it raining, but that also a winter blizzard had bared the mulberry trees of their leaves. A Day Best Spent Indoors Near The Wood-Burner!

Irem As A Classic Profile I caught Irem’s profile at Damla’s house last evening. The backdrop is one of Sabahat’s paintings but this wasn’t the first portrait of the day. After I had my hair-cut we collected Amazon from school and headed to Körfez Restaurant in Turunç for some well deserved nosh. It was there [...]

There is a man in Scotland named Colin Jago who writes that he takes photographs in order to see more. I never had this motivation until I read his words. Indeed I always believed that one had to have a ‘good eye’ in order to make any sort of images, either using photography or other [...]

Drift Wood On Amos Beach Living a reclusive life on a small estate might appear to provide limited opportunities for photography, especially when the weather is inclement. It’s true that living here does little to further my ambition to make images like the late Helmut Newton, however that aside, there are many opportunities to photograph [...]

I woke in my ‘otel today to discover that the city had received a light dusting of snow. When we lived in Istanbul I think I saw more regular snow than in my previous life spent in England. It is true, of course, that it does snow in the U.K. and even today people can [...]

Cold, Dark, Wet, Miserable, and Essentially Beautiful! I’ve just returned from Istanbul where not only did I find myself teaching for two days, but also consulting at a professor of child psychiatry colleague’s hospital clinic. She would, no doubt, have kept me there all day but I was able to escape for just an hour [...]

Oh Dear . . . I don’t believe it! Back in Amos once more and coerced into applying the little grey cells to the creation of stuff for others. It’s all Irem’s doing. Life would be so simple were it not for her. She finds people, talks to them, brings them into our life and [...]

I was looking at the work of New York based Platon, an Anglo-Greek photographer with a portfolio of portraits that include George Bush Snr. and Vladamir Putin. Platon has opened his home to meetings of a group of around 20 photographers who discuss their work together. Unassuming as he may be I am sure he [...]

The incredible New Yorker Dave Beckerman recently invited a number of his blog readers to submit photographs of their work stations. Just a few responded, with yours truly a late entrant so don’t expect to find this image in his collection yet. Star Ship Cockpit!

Scan of Monochrome Image Made On Schoeller Acid Free Watercolour Painting Paper I spent yesterday continuing to attempt to come to grips with the HP B9180. When I purchased it last month there wasn’t any photographic paper in A3 size at the stationers so I bought some large Sulphur Free Watercolour paper for painting manufactured [...]

Unprinted File From Digital Negative Scan Until recently I thought that the differences in quality between different brands of Photo Inkjet Paper to be exaggerated. No doubt this is because I have been used to using the paper by whatever brand of printer I owned, I have had Canon, Epson and now have pretty much [...]

  While carrying your active life on your head can you embrace the quiet spirit in your arms, and not let go? While being fully focused on your vital breath can you make it soft like that of a newborn babe? While cleaning your inner mirror can you leave it without blemish? While loving the [...]

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! Amazon had just discovered some chocolate powder left over from an old pack of powdered Capaccino when I decided to see how well a 50mm Zuiko OM lens would work for portraiture on the E-400. It’s pretty good, and if you already have this lens, (the 1.8 version can be bought cheaply), and don’t [...]

Amos Without Tourists, Perfec’ Another image taken with the E-400 and the Olympus OM 24mm lens, via an adapter. The RAW file was converted in Bibble Pro where the colours were optimized before a curves adjustment was made in Photoshop to emulate Kodachrome 25. Kindly note: Photoshop and Kodachrome are trade marks of Adobe Systems [...]

An English Country Walk?  If you are ever tempted to venture from the beach at Kumlubük and walk up this track you are in for a delight. In the winter it has the potential for a Sunday, (or any other day), trek to delight your family and you. A Red-Setter, Labrador, or similar and the [...]

Muğla is our county town much as Casterbridge was to Hardy. It’s a beautiful old place with lots of new bits added on, much like Dorchester. Indeed as I entered the Muğla government buildings via the main entrance I remembered how when I worked in local government at County Hall, Dorchester, how it wasn’t permissible [...]

Kumlubük Is Dominated By The Şahenk Residence. From almost anywhere around Kumlubük one is bound to see the modernist fortress retreat of the late Ayhan Şahenk. Empty for most of the year the house dominates Kumlubük. I don’t really object to it so much as wish that it, and the other larger dwellings in the [...]

Wonderful Fresh Air And Clear Vistas Despite the untidy buildings scattered over the Kumlubük Plain it remains one of my favourite, and essentially convenient, destinations for walking. There are some wonderful scenes to be ‘photographed, but mainly I enjoy the peace and tranquility of the place during winter months. Irem’s Favourite Shot Of The Day

One Bee Hive When walking in the hills above Turunç do not be surprised if you come upon boxes such as the one above. Sometimes you will find individual ones, and at other times several together, maybe as many as twenty or thirty. They are bee hives. Turkish bee keepers seem impervious to stings. Only [...]

I’d love you all to meet her, I’ll be there, I’ll be there Notice that my eyes have been a misty place since Saturday Brings a feeling we might lead the fire engines anyway Though tomorrow won’t be long, I gotta have to play it cool You get fascinated by her, she could set the [...]

Since yesterday’s post read as if I were under the influence of recreational pharmaceuticals, (I wasn’t, it was illustrative of my natural state), and the photographs seemed stone-cold sober, even prosaic ~ today I have cross-processed the image of the Turunç water-bowser in order to create a 1960s style image more in keeping with yesterday’s [...]

Turunç with its Habit, and other bars is very 1960s. Laid back, fairly quiet, good for families, not good for loud music and clubs . . . you must go somewhere else for all that! Anyway, just to put an end to my personal 1960s revival precipitated by photographing Turunc’s Classic water bowser I leave [...]

I was looking at an old book by Professor Hedgecoe on colour photography recently and noticed that the colours of images reproduced seemed somewhat more muted than those that we are used to today. Initially I put this down to the use of film, rather than digital media, and there may be something in that [...]

Digital Tri X! Here is the second of the images I took recently using my Olympus OM-Zuiko 1.8 50mm lens via an adapter with the Olympus E-400. This time I converted the file to monochrome in Bibble Pro, and toned it very slightly in Adobe Photoshop before it was cropped and resized. It looks slightly [...]

A Neighbour’s House

It Became An Adolescent In Three Weeks!

A Yacht At Anchor In Marmaris Outer Harbour The first thing my father ever told me about photography was always to have the sun behind me when taking a shot. It’s pretty good advice but like all rules sometimes it pays off to flaunt sanity and convention. I love the quality of silhouetted images such [...]