Travel Photography Tips | Istanbul | Think About Colour, Contrast and Great Lighting

© 2012 Wazari Wazir | Travel Photography | Istanbul Turkey | Yeni Cami (The New Mosque) in The Backgrund

The photograph above were taken at two different days while I was in Istanbul, the top photograph were taken on April 13 and the second  one were taken on April 11. During my visit, the weather is not consistent, the first two days we arrive at Istanbul it was raining all day long and we didn’t  get much photo opportunity.

Anyway, we stay at Istanbul for straight 10 days, actually we did planning to visit some other places like Konya, Cappadocia and few other interesting places in Turkey, but because the weather was not on our side, we choose to spend the whole trip in Istanbul. We want to get the best photograph as possible but when it rains, it damper our photographic endeavour, it wasn’t easy taking a photograph while holding an umbrella and most of the times when it rains, everything look almost monochromatic.

Talking about monochromatic or monotone image, if you want to make it interesting, you need to wait or find something that can add contrast to the image (preferably bright & colourful), so your photograph have some point of interest, which can draw viewer eyes toward your photograph, something to look at, instead of let your viewers wandering around aimlessly within the framing of your images.

Those two sets photograph were taken around Eminönü, just a few walkaway from Istanbul famous Galata Bridge. Eminönü is a former district of Istanbul in Turkey and now a neighbourhood of Fatih district. The mosque behind is Yeni Camii or The New Mosque but don’t let the name “New” misleading you, the mosque is not “really new”, in fact it was build more than four hundreds years ago. The construction of the mosque first began in 1597 and completed in 1665.

Most people who have visited this area will make The New Mosque as their background because it was the most prominent building in this area. Back to the photograph above, since it was an overcast day (refer to the 1st photograph), taking the photograph of the mosque alone will not yield a good result.

I need something to make it interesting, so I step back,  crossing the road (using underground tunnel for pedestrian) and wait until I get something colourful or bright to enter the frame and I don’t have to wait long because this area are very busy with motorist and I decided to wait for the yellow taxi to enter my frame and I took  the shot.

For the second photograph, my job was very easy, since the weather was very good all day long and the sky is blue, with or without the yellow taxi, the mosque still can stand on it’s own against a blue sky but personally for me, I odin;t like taking the photograph of the mosque alone I like to include some activities there as well so, I choose the very same spot and took the photograph with yellow taxi also.

Both photographs  has a different mood attached to it, it shows that the lighting plays an important role when it comes to photography, sometimes we have to come back again and again to the same location to get what we really want and since I’ve a lot of times in Istanbul, I don’t have any problem visiting this place over and over again.

Travel photography is about the experience of a place and not just the landscape, for me travel photography is not completed without the add of some kind of activity around the interesting landmark, monument or building, but then again my “taste” and your taste might be different and no point arguing bout taste, so this is my little tips about travel photography, always think about contrast and if possible wait for the good lighting.

If you take a look at some of the interesting travel photographs on the net or travel magazines, what separate them apart from other travel pictures with the same subject, is their great lighting, most of the times, they are taken either in the early morning or late afternoon and the second photograph there were taken in the late afternoon, few minutes before sunset.