Kept Light » Istanbul

Hagia Sophia Folio

A. Cemal Ekin — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 03:49:15 +0000

I have created a folio of 12 photographs from the dome of Hagia Sophia. The photographs are printed photographically on metallic paper which brings out the reflective qualities of gold extremely well. The folio opens with a title page, includes a certificate of authenticity, and continues with a collection of 12 photographs. They are all enclosed in a hand made gold-charcoal folio cover. I sign and number the certificate of authenticity and the folio cover. This stunning collection will make an excellent addition to anyone’s art collection.

The current price of the folio is $250 per set and will increase to $300 after the copy number 6, to $400 after copy number 10. There may be additional increases after that and the total number of folios of this collection will be limited to 18 copies with no more than 3 artist proofs.

Available copies are:

Copy	Price	Status

#1-#6	$250	Sold
#7-#10	$300	Sold
#11-13	$400	Sold
#14-#18	$400 *	Available

* Subject to change

Please contact me using the form on the “Contact” page if you have questions or are interested in acquiring a copy for your collection or for gift giving.

Here are the photographs in the folio collection

[Show as slideshow]

The Puppeteer in Pera

A. Cemal Ekin — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 14:49:13 +0000

On one of our outings, when we visited Narmanli Han, I heard an enchanting music coming behind a line of people watching something. I could see the head of a very tall man with his face painted white but could not make anything of it until I got reasonably close to peek through the crowd. It was a puppeteer manipulating his alter ego with an accompanying story. In a way it was mesmerizing, the man was talking, narrating a story in a deep voice over the music seemingly coming from a device attached to his waist. His black attire, a backdrop for the marionette, made him look larger than he probably was. His arms moved in carefully choreographed sequences carrying the marionette in different directions, or made him kneel. The totality of the experience was captivating, almost to a fault as I do not remember even one word the man said for fear of missing a move, or missing a note of the music.

Then, there was a man in white, I mean from head to toe white. He stood there with occasional smile on his face, with total incongruity with the crowd surrounding the puppeteer; his sole purpose seemed to be to provide a strong contrast to the puppeteer in black. Seeing the puppeteer, the man in white, and a young man who appeared to be the apprentice of the showman, was at times a surreal experience. Who were these men, why did the man in white stood there, why did the apprentice appear to be disinterested in what was going on yet in full costume like his master? I took some photographs, albeit only a dozen or so under rather low light conditions. We continued to visit Narmali Han, where I took some photographs of the cats. Then on our way back, the puppeteer was now wearing an oversize mask, fitting to the occasion, rather grotesque. This time he and his alter ego coincided more.

I took a few more photographs but we had to move on. Still, I believe the few photographs I have convey the surrealistic experience quite strongly, at least to me. Here are the characters of this late afternoon show.

[Show as slideshow]

Six-Winged Seraphim 3D

A. Cemal Ekin — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 00:53:13 +0000

As I mentioned in the previous post, the newly unveiled Seraphim mosaic in Hagia Sophia reminded me of a head mapped to a flat surface. I am not an expert in 3D mapping, but I created the following composite showing how the face could have looked in 3D. I used FaceShop, a Photoshop plugin, to map the features of the depicted face to the features of a 3D face. The software then creates a 3D model that can be rotated maintaining the features of the original. I took two angles that show the shape of a face.

I wanted to see how this would look to see if the original artists could have envisioned how a rounded face could be presented on a flat surface. This is a speculative image at best, a curiosity item, a thinking tool.

Two views of the 3D mapping of the mosaic

Hagia Sophia, a new mosaic unveiled

A. Cemal Ekin — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 15:01:16 +0000

I read in a Turkish newspaper, Aksam, that one of the mosaics in Hagia Sophia was cleaned to reveal the face of the angel Seraphim. According to the news article, the mosaic has been covered for about 160 years. Possibly because of this, the pieces of the mosaic are preserved exceptionally well. This is exciting news for art historians and art lovers around the world. It is particularly exciting for me as I was probably within touching distance from the beautiful face when I was up on the scaffolding a month ago.

As soon as I saw the photograph of the mosaic I thought of photographic techniques that allow to photograph a 360-degree picture of a human head spread on two dimensional surface. In time, perhaps I will try to wrap this mosaic photograph on a 3-D head to see how well it will map. The following is an example of such a photograph. (Original is at Panocamera.com)

From the roof of Hagia Sophia

A. Cemal Ekin — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 19:04:13 +0000

Earlier, I posted a slide show consisting of the photographs I took inside Hagia Sophia. Since then, I have created a second slide show, this time featuring the photographs taken from the roof of Hagia Sophia. You will see the Blue Mosque, the old hippodrome, the obelisks on one side; and Hagia Eirene and the Topkapi Palace on the other. In between, you will see the Marmara Sea and a view of Istanbul not many has seen before.

I walked a narrow ledge on the roof, probably not wider than 4 feet, to go from the front side to the back side so that I could see Hagia Eirene and Topkapi Palace. Making that walk with no protection was not the smartest thing I have ever done! But, the view on the other side was worth it (now that I made it back in one piece!)

In this post, as well as the earlier one you will see both slide shows. I hope you enjoy the show.