SOS Covid

The pandemic with its lockdowns has seen the rise of the "Corona walk" of the troubled and socially distant photographer. I empathise with you, dear friend. It was hard not to lose heart; trying to stay calm behind your masks and fogged up eyeglasses, unable to see through your viewfinders; trying to neither lose sanity nor sanitiser. The invisible foe always seemed to be around the next corner.

This is a tiny summary of my nocturnal excursions from January to April 2021, between 7pm-9pm, before the 9pm lockdowns in Turkey. I would sling a Rolleiflex TLR around my shoulder and doggedly walk the same route in İstanbul over and over, only occasionally slipping into some side streets. The Rollei was usually loaded with Ilford Delta 3200, a beauty for night scenes with street lights; although you really have to know how to expose and develop D3200. 1/15th or 1/30th of a second at f/2.8 and the exposure was taken care of, and I could concentrate on the big struggle of trying to make something worthwhile.

At that time I was thinking about ways to handcraft books using real prints and mucking around with different options, one of which resulted in this mini-album. Obviously, being an experiment, it wasn't meant to impress. As you can see, it's as basic as it gets. Lowest grade cardboard for the covers, a sheet of A4 paper, some double-sided tape; and the five photographs of course, in this case 9x9cm prints on Ilford RC Satin (lovely paper).

I've also done a bigger version with different photos, but it doesn't work as well. Size really does matter with this type of folding design. I would say the same for accordion type albums.

And here's an exciting account on Ilford's  website about making a photobook from prints. Make sure you check out the video as well. Pretty cool, hah?

Friedrich's Crusade

It wasn't meant to be. Friedrich Barbarossa, the German emperor, leading an army of crusaders to Jerusalem, would never reach the holy land. Setting off in May 1189 from Regensburg, marching through the Balkans, they would reach Constantinopolis, then cross the Dardanelles, keep moving southward through Anatolia - fighting off Turkmen attacks all the way - pass the mighty Taurus mountains and just a short way up the Mediterranean would reach this point on the river Saleph on June 10th 1190.

The sixty-seven year old, red bearded emperor allegedly wanted to cool off in the June heat by taking a quick dip, but drowned in hip deep water. A "so it goes" moment in Vonnegutian tradition. Some say his horse slipped and he hit his head against a rock. Others claim a heart attack, which doesn't sound too unreasonable because the stream was most likely freezing cold from the melting Taurus snow.

After the loss of their emperor, the army fell into despair. Most returned back home via sea. Few continued their crusade towards the holy land. As for Barbarossa, Mos Teutonicus was administered. His flesh was interred in Antioch in St. Peter's Church; however, the whereabouts of his bones is still unknown.

Today it's quite mind-boggling to think of tens of thousands of crusaders in heavy armour marching 2500 km over the course of a year. Not dissimilar to Xenophon's March of the Ten Thousand. And at this spot, they still had many hundreds of kilometers ahead. 

It was summer when I made this picture. On June 10th 1190 the crusaders probably had a similarly hot and hazy day.  As they were marching down this valley, surely some of them must have been thinking of home,  so incredibly far away now.