A walk in Bursa

Posted by A. Cemal Ekin on August 30, 2009 · Leave a Comment

After visiting the Ulu Cami (The Grand Mosque) and Koza Han (see the earlier post about them), we strolled through the streets of Bursa. With a detour to see where Ergun lived when he was a young boy, we walked down the hill to a restaurant in the old Jewish district. We left Koza Han from one of its highly ornate gates. In contrast to the one we used to enter the structure, this was huge and highly ornate. I am not sure which one is the main gate. Outside, the local merchants displayed a variety of wares for sale and the passers by showed interest in the items. It was late afternoon, early evening. People made stops for snacks, or walked at a quick pace towards home; at least I thought they were going home. Those who had time to linger found places to perch like the young couple under the very old tree outside the Grand Mosque (Ulu Cami).

As we walked down the hill, I saw one of the many fountains in the city. This was mostly spraying mist, creating a little comfort zone for those who want to pause to rest. I wanted to capture the water in different states, in frozen time with droplets visible and in slow motion where moving water becomes like cotton candy. This is normally a reasonably simple thing to do by using a fast or slow shutter speed. The first was easy, the second proved more challenging as I did not have my tripod with me. The slow shutter speed photographs are taken with camera hand-held at 1/2 to 1/8 of a second. I could still hold the camera steady at those speeds.

Then we passed a statue and a small area dedicated to Cemal Nadir Guler, a cartoonist of my childhood who entered the psyche of the population with a character Amcabey. Through his cartoon art, he commented on various aspects of life in his time. I did not know that he died at the age of 45.

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