Cafe on the Bosphorus

Time and money permitting, one of the things I like to do in a new city, especially a large one, or one where I don’t speak the language, is to book a local, private guide to help me get to see places I wouldn’t easily discover on my own.

In Istanbul, I treated myself to an afternoon and evening with a local resident, tour guide and photographer.  Kemal Nuraydın, founding partner of Istanbul Photography Workshops, is a trained lawyer turned photographer, whose photographs and articles have appeared in National Geographic Magazine, Geo, Cosmopolitan, Readers’ Digest, Die Zeit and Atlas Magazine.

He is a charming, fun and knowledgeable guide who speaks fluent English and is a great teacher as well as a guide.  Once I had booked my preferred time slot and payed a deposit, we agreed a rough itinerary by email.  Kemal knows the city and its people like the back of his hand and has a number of itineraries that you can choose from.  I opted to visit some Bosphorus villages during the afternoon and add on a session on flash and night photography.

We started with a wander around the Grand Bazaar, visiting a caravanserai, a rooftop with pigeons and views, and some workshops.  Later we took a ferry up the Bosphorus, stopped at a few villages, wandered the narrow streets, tasted excellent local yoghurt, took some lovely night shots, with and without flash, and ended up at a bar for a beer.  Not only did I learn about local culture and architecture, I also met some of his friends and family, had my fortune told and improved my photography.

If you are lucky enough to find yourself in Istanbul, I highly recommend booking a session with Kemal.  I am confident that you will be delighted.  I will certainly book again if I have the opportunity.

Jo over at Restless Jo kindly invited me to join the Five Photos, Five Stories challenge that has been rattling around the blogosphere in recent months.  This photo challenge requires participants to post a photo each day for five consecutive days and attach a story to the photo.  It can be fiction or non-fiction, a poem, a long post or a short paragraph, and each day you should nominate another blogger for the challenge.
This is my third of the required five posts, and I’m breaking the rules again by making my nomination of future participants an open invite – if you haven’t been invited yet and you’d like to take up the challenge, then please accept my invitation.

Also linked to Water World Wednesday.

 Copyright Debbie Smyth, 1 June 2015