Turkey : 1972 Archive

A few More

Blue Mosque Istanbul
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Blue Mosque Interior
Hand held on B flicked the button & hoped – hence shake

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Central Turkey
Goreme Cappadocia
Worth Googling & Visiting
Settlement Dates back millennia – region is soft volcanic rock which has been carved out to form houses, monasteries, nunneries – supposedly early Christians but I suspect settlement took place earlier.

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View from a rock dwelling –
Had to climb up a vertical shaft to get in then found a large boulder there which could be rolled over the shaft for protection against invaders. The boulder must have been carved inside the room. Some rooms had beds & seats carved out.

The rock is easily carved – you can pick up a stick & carve away.

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Nearby are subterranean cities holding 10,000 & more inhabitants all carved out of the rock – they keep discovering new cities. At the time of this trip only 2 were open to tourist / public. One city was a random maze of tunnels and rooms, the other was later period, more geometric, cubic, with churches cruciform on plan. Sometimes we found ourselves crawling through narrow air shafts instead of main avenues.

Interior shot of carved out church

Hand held on B flicked the button & hoped

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Can’t put my hand on other slides at moment – will post if they turn up.

The Story ….

In 1972 I decided to go to Cyprus work there for a while & then maybe head off to Egypt. Packed my bags took train to Paris & from there hitch-hiked to Munich. Stayed in Munchen for a few days to take a look around the Olympics games village being completed.
Found my spot on the Autobahn held out my sign saying “Istanbul” & got a lift from an American family driving a Winnebego. (Think the Simpsons with Homer being a paranoid anti-communist married to a Turkish lady returning home to show off her gold jewellery to the Turkish cousins.) Munich – Yugoslavia -Romania – Turkey.

2 days later with Homer having had 3 hours sleep (“Can’t trust them commies Boy!”) we arrived in Istanbul & I joined the 70’s revolution.

Hung out in some local bars & cafes - main tourist Head café was the Pudding Shop.
Answered an ad to share petrol on a drive through central Turkey & teamed up with two Americans Doug & Steve. Doug had bought an old VW Beetle for 10$ from a German crossing the Yugoslav border to dump the car (apparently Germany had strict penalties on car disposal). Filled the tank & off we set.

Route was Istanbul – Ankara – Kayseri – Neveshir - Cappadocia then onto the Mersin on the south coast.

We drove through mountains, plains, salt deserts, deserts, & rock outcrops. Sometimes we got lost.

It took around 2 weeks before we arrived in Mersin. We said our farewells, exchanged addresses & I boarded the ferry to Varosha / Famagusta Cyprus. I worked there for a few months, never got to Egypt. Caught the other ferry to Venice & hitched home to UK.

Sadly I lost all contact with Steve & Doug.
 
Great set of shots - thanks for posting.

It's great to see the enthusiasm on here, for these photographs - especially since the technical image quality is not that great by today's standards. It's a useful reminder that perhaps we obsess rather too much about this aspect these days. We should enjoy the quality of the images themselves, and worry less about sharpness, blah blah blah... (or is that "yada yada", if you happen to be across the pond?!;):))
 
Good point
My memory of these slides was that some were a bit thin but that they were all sharply in focus - ok they are better when projected on a wall but these scans now show deficiency - maybe I was less critical back then. Also possibly partly down to using a Cheap Veho scanner. I posted some comparison shots with a STX1 film & the F660 digital on the Fuji thread earlier this week & soft focus is also apparent from the STX1 lens I used - has a certain charm of its own but sharpness is lacking.

I also discovered some old macro shots last night which I could have sworn were the bees knees in sharpness - not so.

I also think we are more forgiving of old equipment - if I bought a digital camera with the same results it would be sent back.
 
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