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Monthly Archives: January 2014

The Mosque of Hekimoğlu Ali Paşa, Istanbul: The Creation of Space, Floor-Level Views, and Architecture Through a Normal Focal-Length Lens

January 19, 2014
Architecture, Film-based Photography, Istanbul, Photography, Rolleiflex 6x6cm, Turkey
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The Mosque of Hekimoğlu Ali Paşa, Istanbul (view towards minber). +/-2000. The figure at prayer at the lower left and the figure seated at center provide scale. (Rolleiflex Tessar 3.5, 400ASA B/W negative, scan of print). Click on image to enlarge.

The Mosque of Hekimoğlu Ali Paşa, Istanbul (view towards minber). +/-2000. The figure at prayer at the lower left and the figure seated at center provide scale. (Rolleiflex Tessar 3.5, 400ASA B/W negative, scan of print). Click on image to enlarge.

Sometimes, I try to picture the growth of cities and the evolution of architectural styles as short stop-motion films or animations that capture at high-speed centuries of morphological change as unbroken flows rather than as fixed “chapters.”  Envisioning in this manner helps me extrapolate and better understand processes and trends.

Creation of Space

In terms of Islamic architecture (or, more precisely,  three-quarters of a millennium of Ottoman tradition and its immediate predecessors, the facets of Islamic architecture with which I am most familiar) my animated imaginings reveal a striving for larger, more open and unobstructed interior space and, finally, for the transcendence of enclosure itself.  As to how to visual this in terms of design and technique, imagine a transition from flat-roofed or multi-domed structures supported by rows and rows of interior columns and/or piers to dome-on-cube structures made larger and larger in footprint, height, and volume by the addition of cornices, intermediate drums, and half- and quarter-domes to support central domes of greater and greater diameter, and to distribute their weight further and further outwards and downwards.  At the same time, imagine interiors becoming more and more open, with supporting columns and piers banished first to the sides of structures and later integrated into interior and exterior walls.  Finally, imagine walls themselves being perforated and made gossamer by rows upon rows of windows.  The total effect: an illusion of the elimination of enclosure — of architecture itself, thus — and a metaphorical return to the original Muslim place of prayer, the open-air courtyard in the home of the prophet and founder of Islam.

A Floor-Level View

The photo above shows a late example of an open and soaring interior and walls made lace-like by fenestration: the Mosque of Hekimoğlu Ali Paşa (1734) in the Haseki quarter of Istanbul.

The photo was taken with a Rolleiflex Tessar 75mm f3.5 mounted on a small pocket tripod with ball-head.  At the time, I was experimenting with the use of normal focal-length rather that ultra-wide angle lenses to capture interior space.  The challenge thereof was to select and portray a “slice” of interior that would conjure up the entire space; the benefit was the preservation of natural perspective.  The use of a pocket tripod not only made me less obtrusive but also enabled portrayal of the mosque from near-floor level, the height from which the mosque is viewed at during prayer.  Many years ago, a well-known European scholar of Ottoman history and architecture (Machiel Kiel) taught me the value of viewing mosque interiors as they were meant to be viewed, i.e. leisurely and contemplatively while sitting cross-legged on carpeted floors.

A Short-Lived Project: Chaos, Intentionality, and the Symmetry of Friendship

January 12, 2014
35mm Photography, Bulgaria, Faces, Film-based Photography, Friends, Photography, Rolleiflex 6x6cm, Sofia
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The late Dimo Kolarov playing accordion for the last time, Sofia, Bulgaria, 1996. Reflected in the mirror, Georgi "Johnny" Penkov. Rolleiflex Tessar f3.5, 400ASA b/w negative film pushed to 800ASA, scan of print. Click to enlarge

The late Dimo Kolarov playing accordion for the last time, Sofia, Bulgaria, Winter,1996-7. Reflected in the mirror, Georgi “Johnny” Penkov. Rolleiflex Tessar f3.5, 400ASA b/w negative film pushed to 800ASA, scan of print. Click to enlarge

Seventeen years ago, I joined Georgi “Johnny” Penkov (Bulgarian acoustical scientist, filmmaker, and locally renowned pundit and humorist) in a project that we abandoned on its second day.  Our goal was to photograph people who worked, lived, and felt at home in the midst of seeming chaos.  I write “seeming,” because some environments that at first glance appear chaotic are actually elegantly and systematically mapped and navigated by those who create and live their lives therein.   Indeed, that which is random and illogical to one person to another might be ready-to-hand and brightly illuminated, whether by intent or the personal logic of individual psychopathology.

Johnny and I were well qualified for the project.  Johnny has a life-long propensity for balancing his innate engineer-like precision by including in his surroundings a continuously refreshed assortment of chaotic acquaintances.  As to me: although I am skilled at organizing and generating crystal-clear work output, I am equally adept at generating chaos in my wake.

Samples of the output of Johnny’s and my barely-begun project are posted herein: A single snapshot of a disordered worktable at a Bulgarian acoustical engineering institute (see below) and a portrait (above) of the late Bulgarian cinema cameraman Dimo Kolarov at home playing his beloved accordion.  Dimo’s apartment was as neat as a pin but its walls were covered witeh ever-changing collages of newspaper clippings, photographs, and reproductions of art works torn from magazines and books, each pasted next to and atop one another in no perceivable order.  Sadly, the day after we visited him, Dimo fell victim to a stroke and slipped into a coma from which he never emerged. He died several days later.  Out of respect for Dimo, Johnny and I stopped the project.

Work bench, acoustical institute, Sofia, Bulgaria, winter, 1996-7. (Nikon F3, Nokkor 35mm f2.0, 400ASA B/W neg film pushed to 800ASA, scan of print.) Click to enlarge.

Work bench, acoustical institute, Sofia, Bulgaria, winter, 1996-7. (Nikon F3, Nokkor 35mm f2.0, 400ASA B/W neg film pushed to 800ASA, scan of print.) Click to enlarge.

Byproduct: The symmetry of friendship

Some weeks ago, a Bulgarian filmmaker asked me for copy of my portrait of Dimo.  Braving my way through my own chaos, I located a small print amidst my disordered stacks of photos, negatives, and transparencies.  Together with the print of the portrait, I found prints of other photos I’d taken the same day but had forgot about in the intervening years.  In the photos, Johnny and Dimo, colleagues and friends for decades, are talking intently, each slipping into poses and gestures mirroring those of the other — a physical manifestation of friendship, shared experience, and mutual regard, or simply an elegant, symmetrical embodiment of coincidence?

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Photographic footnotes:  Chaotic lighting …

How did I light the scenes portrayed?  Simple: Soft ambient daylight shining through translucent window curtains augmented by a motley assortment of borrowed non-photographic lamps and spotlights, each arbitrarily placed but purposefully aimed ceiling-wards.

… and a worthwhile upcoming exhibition

For two weeks beginning January 16th, the Goethe Institute in Sofia, Bulgaria will host an exhibition by photographer Simon “Moni” Varsano, a brilliant and charismatic photographer with the ability to draw out his subjects and capture the movement of theater and dance.  After the collapse of communism in Bulgaria, some photographers, and opportunists in many other fields, attempted to make capital out of promoting themselves to western embassies and foundations using spurious, self-spun tales of past suppression and dissidence.  Moni, however, never flaunted his own, truly courageous deeds. He simply continued photographing, producing memorable work and conjuring delicate, medium-format quality out of a beat-up 35mm Pentax loaded with whatever film was to be had, and by his mastery of ambient light and exposure.  Later, when many photographers in Sofia competed, in a stereotypical Bulgarian fashion, to promote themselves as “the best” in their little world, Moni confidently and openly shared his knowledge and encouraged others, this writer included, in improving their work and fulfilling their potentials.  I have much to thank him for, thus, and wish him success with the upcoming exhibition.  Visitors to Sofia are also advised to visit the Gradska Galleriya to see the current retrospective of beautifully printed bold photographic portraits by the technically masterful Bulgarian duo Bogdanov and Misirkov.

The Women’s Market, Sofia, Bulgaria, Mid-1990s: One Poem, Two Faces, and Recollections of Three Photographers

January 3, 2014
Bulgaria, Faces, Film-based Photography, Photography, Rolleiflex 6x6cm, Sofia, Street Commerce
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A Portrait: The late "Belleto," cardboard box scavenger, Women's Market, Sofia, Bulgaria, winter 1997-8. (Rolleiflex Tessar f3.5, Tri-X 400 ASA, scan from print) Click to enlarge.

The late “Belleto,” cardboard and scrap paper scavenger, Women’s Market, Sofia, Bulgaria, winter 1997-8. (Rolleiflex Tessar f3.5, Tri-X 400 ASA, scan from print.) Click to enlarge.

Two informal portraits taken late one winter afternoon a decade and a half ago with an old Rolleiflex Tessar 75mm f3.5.  For years after photographing in and around the outdoor “Women’s Market” in Sofia, Bulgaria, I found it difficult to photograph faces in Western Europe and even in my native New York.  Faces in the latter locations appeared less marked by life and labor and more  by fashion and pose.  When looking at these two portraits anew after many years, I remembered phrase from a poem by the great Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet, something about “faces carved as if by plows.”  A quick browse through the bookshelves and I tracked the words down to his passionate poem about the Virgin Mary and the faces and eyes of women, “The Faces of Our Women” (“Kadιnlarιmιzιn Yüzleri”).

The photos also reminded me of three photographers. The first is Austin, Texas based professional photographer and prolific writer and weblogger, Kirk Tuck, whose kind comments about the photo below in the course of an email exchange a year or so ago led to my relaunching Bubkes.Org.

The second is Pieter Vandermeer, a rough and tumble Rotterdam-based professional who, in the midst of his continuous flow of assignments, was the official photographer of the Rotterdam Film Festival in its initial years.  Piet had learned photography in the Navy and not, like most Dutch photographers, at an art academy.  Piet had the courage and integrity to look subjects (and clients!) in the eyes, engage them, and enable them to be themselves. Even when photographing people “on the street,” he would invariably track them down and present them with a print of their portrait, a confirmation of their and his person-hood.  Piet’s approach was part of what prompts me every now and then to blow the dust off one my Rolleiflexes and set them to work.  With a Rollei, I can lock eyes with a subject and, at the same time, compose, focus, and shoot.  Because I am tall, the ability to use the Rollei at waist or chest level rather than eye level keeps me from looking down on subjects, literally and figuratively.

The third photographer is Elena Nenkova, a very fine Bulgarian studio and music event photographer who, back in the 1990’s, was also a printer of custom photographic enlargements.  Many of the older photos I occasionally post on this site are scans of prints she made from my negatives.  Thus, they are her work as well as mine and incorporate her vision, care, and excellence.

Baker, side-street of Women's Market, Sofia, Bulgaria, 1997. (Rolleiflex f3.5 Tessar, Tri-X, 400 ASA, scan of print). Click to enlarge.

Baker, side-street of the Women’s Market, Sofia, Bulgaria, winter1997-1998. (Rolleiflex f3.5 Tessar, Tri-X, 400 ASA, scan of print). Click to enlarge.