Wednesday, January 16, 2008

A tag of sorts - Pencereler

I was tagged by Madhuri quite a while back. The tag goes something like this: All you have to do is select and upload one photo that you have clicked this year that is special to you. Could be anything…aesthetic, technical or personal. Also, put in a short note why it is special.

This has been quite difficult; partly because I travelled so much last year (which is when I was tagged - eight countries, by the way), and also because I have taken so many pictures that I love dearly. A lot of them I have already been put up here! As it happens, the one that I kept going back to has already been uploaded - it's the lovely green door in İstanbul.

Still, I decided to use the tag as an excuse to post two pictures I took in İstanbul that haven't made it here. My fetish for doors (especially green ones) has already been documented, so this time its all about the windows. If İstanbul has lovely doors - and it does - it also has lovely windows. And just like everything else in the city, you can look at its windows and imagine all sorts of stories and marvel at the contrasts.


The old districts of İstanbul further west of Fatih don't really figure on the tourist maps as such, but I adored them dearly. A lot of the old Turkish houses survive - but just. Some of them look like a gentle prod would reduce them to a heap of rubble and splinters. Like this wooden house in Edirnekapı. Catching a glimpse of it from the side I was convinced that it was abandoned ... it looked too dangerous for someone to be living in. And then, one look at the front and I couldn't help but smile. No matter how unsafe or unstable this was clearly someones beloved house. You can just tell just looking at those lovely flowers that adorn the windowsills, can't you? It might not be much, but home is always home.

So, passing the tag on...and since many of you continously post lovely photos... which is (are) the photo(s) that you have clicked over the past year that are special to you?

11 comments:

??! said...

I knew it! You green-door fetishist, you.

Szerelem said...

WHAT?? It is a nice picture!! I thought you would say I'm shifting to a window fetish now :P

??! said...

I meant the coming out and admitting that that picture was your favourite one. First window one is nice too - but a little...too pretty, dontcha think?

Tabula Rasa said...

nice pix, but why tag? (do you *really* want to see a link to the silk road posts?)

Szerelem said...

??!: too pretty is a bad thing? I actually like the colors in that one... TR: oh come on...surely there must be something from that trip... But then again you blogged about it for eons so maybe not..

Madhuri said...

Thanks! The pics are lovely - specially the one with 4 windows - so dreamlike!

??! said...

Not bad, just not as good as the others - not so much huzun, perhaps (guess who started reading Pamuk thanks to your incessant ravings).

And I think if you edit the bottom half out of the second pic, it makes a (better) great snap.

Tabula Rasa said...

wellllll, now that you put it *that* way, there *were* some 950 pix, of which i couldn't have posted more than a hundred or so.

Space Bar said...

TR: Actually, I wouldn't mind. And 950...wow!

I'd like to do this one, but have to dig hard to find something...somehow, I seem to have stopped doing photography seriously. Bah.

Szerelem said...

Madhuri: Thanks :)

??!: Hah! Though I would have told you to start with My Name is Red over Istanbul. I hope you like Pamuk and have a better experience with him than TR did - I don't think he ever got past 50 pages or so...

TR: :D

Space Bar: Ooh, ok I shall wait for your picture.

Anonymous said...

"My fetish for doors (especially green ones) has already been documented, so this time its all about the windows"

Bwahahahaha. Finally, you accept.

Windows are *Rickety*. Wow.