Travel Photography | The Magnificent AyaSofya, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul Turkey
© 2012 Wazari Wazir | AyaSofya | Hagia Sophia | Istanbul | Turkey
Hagia Sophia (/ˈhɑːɪə soʊˈfiːə/; from the Greek: Ἁγία Σοφία [aˈʝia soˈfia], “Holy Wisdom”; Latin: Sancta Sophia or Sancta Sapientia; Turkish: Ayasofya) is a former Orthodox patriarchal basilica, later a mosque, and now a museum in Istanbul, Turkey. From the date of its dedication in 360 until 1453, it served as an Eastern Orthodox cathedral and seat of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, except between 1204 and 1261, when it was converted to a Roman Catholic cathedral under the Latin Empire.
The building was a mosque from 29 May 1453 until 1931, when it was secularized. It was opened as a museum on 1 February 1935. The Church was dedicated to the Logos, the second person of the Holy Trinity, its dedication feast taking place on 25 December, the anniversary of the Birth of the incarnation of the Logos in Christ. (WikiPedia)
We spend five hours inside AyaSofya, normally people will spend around two hours here especially if they follow a tourist operator or travel agency, we travel on our own, so we are not rushing, there were four of us on this trip. Why it takes so long? You may asked, as you can see from the picture above, there are a lots of tourist, maybe few hundreds or thousands at a time depending on the season, we came here on April which is in spring.
The reason is that, as a passionate photographers, we need to get the best angle and most of the times, the best angle is very hard to get by, I mean, there will always people gathering at the best angles to take their pictures, so we need to have a little bit of patient and wait for our turn, and once we get the best angle, as a photographers, we never satisfied with the photographed we took, so we have to “clear” the area to make ways for another people to take their photos, and when they are done, we start taking pictures again and again, so you get the idea, why it took so long.
If you look at my self portrait shot up there, taken by one of my friend, you may think that, it was easy to get a photograph there, in fact, it’s not, there area lots of people waiting for me to finish my “business”, I’ve to be quick and once I’m done and if I think that the photograph taken by my friend is not really satisfying, I’ve to wait again and ask my friend to take another shot of me.
Actually we really have a lot of time here in Istanbul, our hotel that we stay is just five minute walk from Ayasofya, we stay at Cemberlitas, not very far from the famous Cemberlitas Hamami, we are really not in a hurry, in fact we can stay inside there until its closed if we want to. We flew all the way from Kuala Lumpur to Istanbul which take almost eleven hours of flying times, so why hurry.
The above photograph were taken with 24mm and 50mm lens and I use ISO ranging from ISO 1000 to 1600. Yes it’s quite dark inside there and we have to use slow shutter speeds between 1/20 and 1/10 to get the shot, so you can imagine about the condition of the lighting there and one of the reason also why we need to take a lot of pictures here due to high possibility of camera shakes because of the slow shutter that we are using.
*Latest info about Hagia Sophia Museum ;
Summer Schedule- 15 APRİL -1 OCTOBER Visiting Hours: 09.00 – 19.00
Hours of Ticket Sale: 18:00
Winter Schedule- 1 OCTOBER- 15 APRİL Visiting Hours: 09:00- 17:00
Hours of Ticket Sale: 16:00.
Ticket Price: 25 TL | RM 43 | USD 14/15
Hagia Sophia Museum is available everyday for visiting except Mondays. Visiting hours of winter schedule are 09:00-17:00 with the last entrance time of 16:00. Visiting hours of summer schedule are 09:00-19:00 with the last entrance time of 18:00.
Directive for Procedures and Principles to be applied at the Entrances of Museums and Historical Sites
Special Days : Hagia Sophia Museum is not available for visiting in the first days of Ramadan and Sacrifice Festivals for half time.
