Istanbul is a photographer's dream - one of the world’s richest culturally, and architecturally diverse cities-a city where the culture and history of the Orient and the Middle East connects directly with the modern, western culture of Europe. This seven-day workshop, led by Peter Turnley, one of the great photographers of our times, centers on street photography, the photo essay, and all forms of personal image making. In addition to growing photographically under Peter’s mentorship, this is a cultural learning experience in one of the world’s most beautiful and historic cities.
Istanbul is not only one of the world’s most exciting cities visually, but currently one of the world’ s cities embodying the most exciting and interesting geo-political and cultural intersections of Eastern and Western life. Istanbul is also a city where the citizens of the city are in general very open to being photographed, and where there has been a very rich past and present photographic culture. Istanbul will offer a tremendous opportunity for students to photograph the life of an amazing city. Peter Turnley has lived in Europe, for the past thirty years. He worked as the assistant to legendary Paris street photographer Robert Doisneau, has published 5 books, including “Parisians”. His images of world affairs, social, cultural, and political issues, are seen in the world’s most prestigious publications. He is also a widely respected teacher of workshops on street photography.
He has also published an exceptional 8 page photo essay in the Sept. 2007 issue of Harper’s Magazine, entitled “Across the Bosphorus, photographs from Turkey”. Peter has taught several workshops previously in Istanbul, and aside from his own tremendous human and teaching attributes, he brings into the workshop many prominent members of Istanbul's wonderfully talented photographic community for presentations and lectures.
We will meet a few hours each day as a group for lectures and presentations, editing, review and critiques of the each student’s work-in-process. We will visit museums and galleries as a group, share dinners and meet privately with Peter each day to review work and discuss our progress. Peter will discuss techniques for making spontaneous, human images of the life of a city. There are presentations and lectures by members of Istanbul’s talented photographic community, and by people with particular expertise on Turkish life and culture.
You will be exploring the streets, markets, the worlds’ greatest bazaars, cafes, restaurants, parks, squares, churches, mosques, shops, and various neighborhoods, street life, tramways, and waterways of Istanbul. You will be expected to be photographing for at least half of each day. You are urged to research and develop a theme of life in Istanbul that interests you as you create a photo story around that theme. You need not come with one and may explore various themes while in Istanbul. Peter will help you with this process.
You will be pushed and encouraged to go beyond simply the picturesque and to discover a sense of the texture and the rhythm to the real life of this exciting and unique city. You will be encouraged to photograph not only scenes and environments, but also the people and life of Istanbul. If you are reluctant to approach people with your camera, Peter will help you learn techniques, and expose you to ideas and a spirit that will help you photograph people, up close.
This will be a visually interesting time for you to create powerful images. We expect you to work hard each day and approach your fieldwork with concentration and determination. You should also be aware that the workshop is particularly towards a documentary, photojournalistic approach to photographing the rich reality of Istanbul. We end the workshop, with a group dinner and a final class slideshow comprising each student’s final story of 15 images.
This is an all-digital workshop. Come with your digital SLR camera and a laptop computer on which to store, edit and manage their work. You will want to store and back-up each day’s work, and re-format your disks. (See technical information below)
The workshop will include a group dinner on Sunday evening, and a farewell group dinner at the end of the workshop. This promises to be an extraordinary experience for workshop participants.
Who Should Attend
This 7-day photographic workshop is for photographers and serious amateurs who want to explore and document their encounter with the culture, cityscape and people of Istanbul. You should be knowledgeable about your digital camera, digital workflow and able to solve technical problems in the field. Peter will work with you to improve not only your visual expression shooting, but also to help you better organize your workflow. All participants should be experienced and savvy travelers, used to dealing with the intricacies of bureaucracy, transportation and technical issues.
Companions
This is an ideal workshop to bring along a spouse, son or daughter or partner. Non-photographic companions may join the group sessions and meals but are not involved in the critique or review sessions. Companion supplement is $150.
Arrival
Plan to arrive by Sunday morning, June 20th. If possible, it may be a good idea to arrive on Saturday, June 19th to give you an evening of acclimation before the workshop. The first workshop class will start at 2pm on Sunday, June 20th. There will be a group dinner the first night and the students will be guests of the workshop.
Departures
The workshop ends Saturday, June 26th by noon. There will be a final show of the students 15 image pictures stories. There will be final group dinner with student’s guests of the workshop, on Friday evening, June 25th. Students are free to leave starting Saturday afternoon or you can remain on to explore more of Turkey. This timing gives people the chance to get home to return to work by Monday if necessary.
Technology
This is a digital workshop-this workshop is conducted using digital cameras. If you wish to shoot film, you may so do, but we suggest you bring it home for processing, so for critiques, you will have to be using a digital camera. Students are encouraged to use a 35 mm digital camera. You will need to know how to download your digital images each evening to a folder so that your days work can be brought to class the next day on either a flash drive, external hard drive, or cd, for review each day with Peter Turnley. Students will be encouraged to choose from the outset if they want to see their work in color or in black and white, and they will be encouraged to stick to their choice of one of the other throughout the workshop.
What to Bring
Besides your SLR digital cameras, bring a body of your creative work with you to share—a portfolio or CD of images. Your portfolio can be prints or digital images. The workshop will have an LCD projector and there will be a final show of all of the students work during the final session.
Camera Gear
A digital SLR camera is required. Students may work with a high end point and shoot camera such as a Canon G10. Two bodies are recommended, with a minimum of at least one wide-angle lens, such as a 17-35mm zoom, or 24mm, 28mm, 35mm, or 50mm lens. In order to shoot comfortably in low light situations, it will be preferable that students have a wide-angle lens that is relatively fast and has a wide aperture such as 1.4., 1.8. 2 or 2.8. Bring several memory cards (at least 1 G cards are recommended), extra batteries and necessary battery chargers. Your laptop should have image management software, such as Apple’s Aperture, Adobe’s Light Room or, as Peter suggests, Photomechanic, which can be downloaded, free, on a trial basis from the site of Camerabits.
Make sure you have a back-up system on which to download each day’s work. This can be your laptop, a portable external hard drive storage device, flash drive, or cds or DVDs. You will need a means of getting your edited images in a folder to Peter each day for review—flash drives are the most practical, but you can also use an external hard drive, or cd or DVD.
Research and preparation
Research and preparation are important parts of any adventure. There are many Istanbul and Turkey to be found on the Internet.
Meals
The first and last meals are included in the cost of the workshop. You will be a guest of the workshop for a group opening dinner on Sunday night, and a final dinner on Friday night. Aside from the two group meals, breakfasts, lunches and dinners are independent but students are encouraged to join each other in local restaurants and cafes. Expect to be paying around $50 a day on meals.
Hotels:
Peter has found three very nice hotels. Below are the names, rates, web sites and phone numbers. Please call or e-mail to reserve a room in the hotel of your choice. The classroom activity will take place at the AND Hotel and this is where Peter will be staying:
AND Hotel
Yerebatan Cad. Cami Cikmaz No.40, Sultanahmet, Istanbul
90.212.512 0207
info@andhotel.com
Kybele Hotel
Yerebatan Caddesi, 35 Sultanahmet
34110 Istanbul
tel.90.212.511 77 66
info@kybelehotel.com
Hotel Niles
Ordu Caddesi Dibekli Cami Sokak, #19, Beyazit-Istanbul
Tel. 90.212 517 32 39
info@hotelniles.com
For more information about teacher Peter Turnley, please consult his personal website: peterturnley.com
Turnley has published 5 books of his work:
Parisians
McClellan Street
In Times of War and Peace
Beijing Spring
Moments of Revolution
