Turks are friendly, generous, helpful people. They are even more so in the tourist parts of Istanbul because they (i.e., the shop owners) understand better than any other Europeans that tourists equal business, though it is not so cynical as that. They still draw upon their natural hospitality.
As a photographer I'm pleased at how open Turks are to having their photo taken. I generally ask first, and the answer ranges from a shrugging "of course, why not?" to welcoming eagerness.
Most refreshing of all is that there are no hang-ups about shooting kids. The innocence of children makes them great subjects, but in the West (outside Europe, anyway) there is a paranoid politically-correct protectiveness. Once, on a shooting excursion in Sydney's Hyde Park, a group of photography students and I were accosted by a father whose children, some hundred metres away, happened to fall in the range of our lenses. We were so taken aback and uncomprehending that he thought we were an organised group of voyeur paedophiles that nobody had the wherewithal to tell him to go fuck himself before he disappeared.
As a photographer I'm pleased at how open Turks are to having their photo taken. I generally ask first, and the answer ranges from a shrugging "of course, why not?" to welcoming eagerness.
Most refreshing of all is that there are no hang-ups about shooting kids. The innocence of children makes them great subjects, but in the West (outside Europe, anyway) there is a paranoid politically-correct protectiveness. Once, on a shooting excursion in Sydney's Hyde Park, a group of photography students and I were accosted by a father whose children, some hundred metres away, happened to fall in the range of our lenses. We were so taken aback and uncomprehending that he thought we were an organised group of voyeur paedophiles that nobody had the wherewithal to tell him to go fuck himself before he disappeared.
No comments:
Post a Comment