Basilica Cistern by jyokota

Basilica Cistern

How to choose from 240 photos of my first day in Istanbul? I settled on this one taken in the Basilica Cistern, an underground chamber built to provide water for the city in the 6th century. There are 336 marble columns and arches. I found the place to be completely atmospheric and thought my photo captured it pretty well. It was hard to get it truly in focus because of how dark it was and because of the water everywhere, but the reflections in the water made the photo interesting to me.
Phenomenal! Love the reflection, the composition.
January 19th, 2013  
Wonderful....love the light...it almost looks like a mirror shot! Fav
January 19th, 2013  
Awesome shot! I can totally sense the feeling of being there. The shapes are very captivating.
January 19th, 2013  
Pam
You did really great considering how dark it was. Love the lighting, and composition.
January 20th, 2013  
fantastic shot, I love the lighting, reflections in the water, well done. If I may make a suggestion, try cropping the left and right hand sides to avoid the bright edges to the photo, the columns would make great edges to the image. Would be good to see some more of your images.
January 22nd, 2013  
Sorry for delayed response but my internet connections while traveling have been spotty and slow . . .

@taffy -- this was such a place I could imagine you photographing; @lynnb -- THANKS for the fav! :)
@vankrey -- and I can imagine how long you'd like to photograph this place!
@pammerritt -- I was lucky because I have a decent lens (f/2.8) and I could hear people all around me complaining that their phone photos were turning out all black . . . but whenever I shoot in such difficult situations, even if I like what I see on the tiny screen I feel like I'm literally "shooting in the dark" until I get it up on the computer.
@whdphotog -- I think I will start a new album called "redos" because I really like your suggestion, but once when I deleted and reposted, I lost everyone's comments! Thanks for the suggestion . . . I'll be sure to try it out and post. I told the photographer at the conference what you suggested and he completely agreed.
January 29th, 2013  
This really is remarkable!
February 10th, 2013  
Love this photo. We went here years ago - it's an amazing place. Fav for me.
March 4th, 2013  
@eyesofbetsie Thanks for the lovely comment!
@rachelwithey It's such a memorable place, isn't it? And extra thanks for the fav!
March 6th, 2013  
Leave a Comment
Sign up for a free account or Sign in to post a comment.