After playing in a park, (see yesterday’s entry), Amazon suddenly became hungry so we retired to a basement cafe and pool hall. It was suprisingly civilized and the barman made Amazon the largest ‘tost’ I have thus far seen. The lighting was very subdued so all this series was shot using Image Stabilization and apertures [...]
A Wonderful Book For A Lad! As a small boy I knew nothing of language reform, I just knew that I couldn’t spell, that adults told me that this was a bad thing, and I discovered at school that sometimes my inability could be painful. Imagine my surprise one Christmas when my eldest brother Nick [...]
The Best Receptacle For Written Verbiage! One of the problems of being a health-care professional is that one’s home fills up with confidential medical papers, affidavits, supervisors reports and the like. This stuff is largely verbiage and opinion, rarely born out by future events but which may significantly impact upon the lives of people in [...]
This lady represents just one of the cultures to be found today in Turkey When yesterday I wrote of the film ‘Don’t Be Afraid of Life‘, a story about three innocent men forced to encounter todays commercial world I thought about ‘Ebru’ the book reflecting on Turkish Culture by Attila Durak. This book of Durak’s [...]
Ceren Soylu Relaxes With Turkish Coffee And A Cheroot Yesterday I shared my first Nikon digital image with you. It has been about six months since I made the photograph but Emre Tavman only gave it to me last weekend when I met with him and some of his childhood friends. Amongst these is Ceren [...]
The Smallest House On Amos Estate O.K. so Jack didn’t build this house. Indeed it was built by a team of artisans from Eastern Turkey some thirty years ago and it was intended to serve as the site office. It is an unusual design being exactly half of the size, and half of the original [...]
Fatma Teyze Takes ‘Time Out’ Every other evening, or so, we’ve taken to visiting Fatma Teyze and her grandson Yunus. She is caring for Yunus at the moment whilst his father and mother are away in Istanbul. Poor Yunus dropped hot çay on his leg and is off school due to the scald. He also [...]
Kahve At The Cafe Of Illusion If, like me, you thought yesterday’s images surreal then take a look at this one. It’s a shot I wouldn’t have attempted has I not been attempting to use up a slow film in an old Olympus OM-1. The OM-1 is an entirely mechanical camera, although it does have [...]
It’s Ramazan here but as a child, and part yabanci, she isn’t expected to conform. Dondurmas as usual at Amos Restaurant. My friend Sir Michael Carr-Jones loves ice-cream pictures pictures, so these are dedicated to him, and Lynne. I’ve eaten the ice cream what’s to do now? There’s more there, if I suck . . [...]
Why has Amazon a bemused and appealing look on her face? This Is What She Wanted! Ooops, All The Tasty Dondurma Has Gone I Can’t Believe I Ate It That Quickly!
Haute Cuisine Maybe? I was cleaning out some files on the computer today when I came upon this ‘still life’ image. What can this meal be, you may ask? In fact it’s no meal at all, it’s a joke! Earlier this year, when my mother-in-law was staying with us, I attempted to explain to her [...]
Who founded Irem’s Favourite Magazine! Tatlı is a Turkish word denoting sweetening, or sweet. (The) Tatler, however, is a venerable English magazine dating from the early eighteenth century. The original Tatler was founded in 1709 by Richard Steele, who used a nom de plume of “Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire”, the first such consistently adopted journalistic persona, [...]
Here is a photograph of a mother and child. It just happens to be Amazon and Irem. It could equally be your child and you, or even Granny and Grandad. The fact is that it’s a common enough scene, which although unposed is similar to the kinds of family portrait that many people snap as [...]
Michael Mallows was a recent presenter at this year’s NLP Conference Our, (not so very), old buddy Michael Mallows has relaunched ‘New learning patterns’ as a Yahoo Group. In a private e-mail to Irem and I he says: Hello, I’ve added you to my NewLearningPatterns group at Yahoo! Groups, a free, easy-to-use service. Yahoo! Groups [...]
A number of my small business clients suffer with lack of customers. What can I do to increase sales, they ask? I already have an advertisement in Yellow Pages. Now it must be said that I happen to like Yellow Pages because for many businesses and advertisement in them works like a credential. People think [...]
O.K. I admit it. It’s nice to be in London. My dear ol’ Papa, Gawd rest his Soul was a Londoner he lived as a boy in Camberwell, and it was in Camberwell that I first met Irem and started my rehabilitation from therapist to regular guy. I’m still not cured but I’m lots better [...]
Fatma Teyze This morning has been devoted to Holiday Magazine Turkiye. I went to photograph Fatma Teyze whom I quote in a forthcoming article about education in Turkey. According to July’s Economist Magazine only one in three girls in Turkey attend school and sadly one of my neighbours children seems to miss far too many [...]
Guy Bourdin: Pizza, (note the masterful sloping horizon in this top photographer’s shot). I found this image by Guy Bourdin on one of his fan sites. Here are two powerful-looking women eating Pizza in front of a tropical seascape. Could we do something like this for The Amos Beach Club, I wonder? There’s nothing overtly [...]
When Guy Bourdin or Helmut Newton were commissioned to photograph fashion, or even make pictures of cars or other machinery, they always managed to inject a sense of the macabre into their work. Of course they’re both dead now which is pretty macabre too! But when I get summoned to take a photograph of the [...]
Not So Happy As It May Seem! Tansaş Supermarket in Marmaris have changed their rules. It has always been the case that you may park in the multi-story car park above their store for up to two hours, free of charge if you buy from the store. But that’s all changed . . . Today [...]
Not content with tending the wounded dog Boncuk, today we rescued a tiny tortoise.
A Holiday Snap For All You Whinging Winnies! We try to avoid going to Marmaris any more than strictly necessary, but at the moment I’m stripping the paint from some cast aluminum garden furniture in anticipation of the summer months. Unfortunately I rather underestimated the amount of paint stripper needed for the task so today [...]
In Turkey trousers are always bought with their length unfinished. A tailor then fits them to you.
Flowers here continue to thrive throughout the year due to the mildness of the winter.
Isn’t Turkey a Moslem Country, I hear the ‘little grey cells’ as they rub together in feverish perturbation in your skull at the thought that St. Nicholas might just bring Rudolph this far South!
Just call me on my mobile . . .
If you ask for instant coffee in a cafe, or on a bus, you’ll be met with a blank face!
When Stephen finds himself in a conversation that could have been penned by P.G. Wodehouse he finds that he must decamp to Istanbul.
Pernickety Peter Port noticed that the Vin Rouge wasn’t as ‘rouge’ as the article recommended, so Stephen rouges it up . . a bit!
Official Report: It’s not a heffalump, but a piglet. Whilst the baby pig decimates the garden, mother pig keeps watch on the other side of the fence.
A French noun describes a Welsh Settle in Turkey. But a few days after its arrival Stephen may be turning into ‘Uncle’ Apthorpe.
In the latest issue of the online journal Nurturing Potential Joe Sinclair criticises the media obsession of belittling others, and reveals that the number of languages in the world is steadily shrinking.
The modern Turkish alphabet has 29 letters so care must be taken when surfing the Internet.
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Difficilis,querulus, laudator temporis acti.
Sepuero, castigator, cesorque minorum
Stephen Jeremy Maxwell Bray lives with his wife Irem, and daughter Amazon at Amos, Turunc near Marmaris, Turkey..
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