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3rd helicopter shot !!!

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Received a call from our Turquish Client last Thursday:
"Nicolas, are you free tomorow or Sunday? we have just launched our new Tender and we would like you to come and make some photos…"

A tender is a small boat to go from the shore (be it a dock or the beach) to the main boat (the BIG one).

So I flew Friday afternoon, arrived late at night in Istanbul, slept a few hours, came to the boat, met our new model Anna-Carolina (she's Brazilian and were much more exited by her upcoming shoot for the day after for Marie-Claire…), waited that the 14 (or were they 16?) workers finish they work (see below post #15) and we went out of the harbor at 2:00 PM… made some shots while on board, disambarked, went to the helicopter, shot the boat for 40 minutes, went back on the chase boat to shoot more and come into the Bosphore for the sunset.
In total, I travelled 22 hours, shot 8 hours from Friday 2:00 PM to Sunday noon (back in Bordeaux)! Pheww!

One cannot end a life without having seen a sunset in the bosphore…
So this first shot, despite the title of the thread is not shot from a chopper, but from a chase boat. This one is dedicated to Cem…

Then 3 of the helicopter shots… it seems I have found the right settings this time, or maybe that my dear Hy6 starts to understand me… well, we get used to work together now! lovely little box…

I'll post the exif tomorrow as I don' have the infos for now (I'm home).
The files have been DNGed with Brumbaer tools (latest upgrade) and then processed with Adobe Lightroom 2 Beta to give it a try… not that bad!
Anyway, as usual, all shot with a Sinar HY6 and a Sinarback eMotion 75 LV - ISO 200 (except the 1st posted, ISO 400) and Schneider AFD-Xenotar PQS 2.8/80 mm lens…

For my friend Cem:
From a chase boat (running speed about 15 mph)

3059_Brumbaer_LR2.jpg


From a chopper (boat running speed about 35/40 mph)

3040_Brumbaer_LR2.jpg


100% crop:

3040_Brumbaer_LR2_crop.jpg
 
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Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
...One cannot end a life without having seen a sunset in the bosphore…
So this first shot, despite the title of the thread is not shot from a chopper, but from a chase boat. This one is dedicated to Cem…
Hi Nicolas,

I really don't know what to say. You have really made me very emotional right now. For those who don't know this, I was born and raised in Istanbul and lived there until I was 25 years old. It says a lot for the (latent) quality and power of the first picture that it has managed to bring tears of joy and sorrow to my eyes. The beautiful skyline and the silhouette of the Blue Mosque, it is just fantastic!

Regarding the quality of the shots, I humbly drool. Also, I like the tender as well, very sleek design.

Thanks for sharing these :).

Bon soir!
 
The sunset on the River is mindblowing! Really beautiful Nicolas!

I think 3040 (second from above) may be the strongest for advertising purposes.

I am always amazed on the 100% crops.

Superb!
 
OMG, #2 is just spectacular. That is what excellent photography is all about. Everything about this picture is perfectly planned, composed, and executed.

Thanks for an inspirational posting
 

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
...Georg, this is not a river! you'll get Cem falling backward! it is the entrance of the Bosphore… very salty (and historic BTW) waters!
Which he just did (LOL). It always amazes me how many people I have met think that the Bosphorus Strait is a river ;-).

Nevertheless, shot #2 is also my favorite. The picture is simply amazing, the shape of the tender and the composition is perfect.
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Glad to hear that the Hy6 camera becomes like a second "skin" slowly.

Beautiful shots, beautiful boat.

Congratulations,
Thierry

Yes Thierry,
apparently the little beast starts to be domesticable… Note, that I have been very kind with he/her, cleaned the sensor, talked gently etc ;-)

For those who wishes to see more of that job, here is a link to the "keepers": 40 images among 90 that where shot with the Sinar Hy6 during that day.

More images…


thanks for the congrats!
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
A Most Beautiful Sunset on The Bosphorus!

Nicolas,

It's amazing to follow your travels. Your mind must have more images of oceans, straits. ports, rivers, docks and ship building hangers than most of us here of streets, landscapes and people!

If you stopped the sea birds would miss you!

We fell in love with Istanbul, and as people saw it in the 19th Century,(as Constantinople), "The Paris of the Orient". Allow me to take everyone back to reveal the importance of this city and its tentacles of power to the entire modern world. This has been a place of scholarship, imperial power, Islamic art, and architecture for many, many centuries. For at least 1200 years, what this city said, could be heard all the way to the Baltics!

Here, to orient people, we are going south from the direction of the Black Sea to passing the Blue Mosque on the Western shore of the mighty Bosphorus. That is on the Western half of modern bustling Istanbul; further west is Bulgaria and Greece, in case you wanted to know! :)

3059_Brumbaer_LR2.jpg

Photo Nicolas claris 2008

Here was the refuge for Jews each time the Christian States has another pogrom each decade or so for the past thousand years! This was the place from which Jewish Scholars of the court of the Sultan came to Spain to translate the libraries of Moorish Spain when it fell to the Christian armies. The science was so advanced that there were no words in European languages for example for some Astronomical concepts. This was one of the largest influxes of knowledge, literature and beautiful poetry the west had known. It was the maps that got the Europeans ideas of trading routes. Jewish Physicians in Italy and France started medical schools with students directly paying them. (Of course 100 years later, Jews were banned from entering these prestigious institutions, go figure!)
"...face à la culture europeenne de la même époque, la culture musulmane se characterize socialement par une plus large diffusion, liée a l'essor urbain et à la fabrication du papier...pas de ville, sans parler des princes, qui n,eut pas sa ou ses bibliothèques, ses ecoles et ses etudiants, autour de mosques ou de foundations privées, car c'etait faire oeuvre pie que de contribuer a repandre la science. On faisait rechercher a travers le monde les manuscripts qui la contenaient, et des armies de copistes travaillaient à les multiplier...33
By 762, expansion under the Abbasid dynasty (ca. 750-1258) had slowed, and the rulers in Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo and Cordoba could survey their empire's peaceful boundaries, stretching from Asia to the Atlantic. Their attention turned to domestic matters rather than expansion. Baghdad, under the Caliph al-Ma'mun (770-813), was made home to the empires first formal academy and library. Modeled to some degree after the Alexandrine model, it was devoted to the transcription and translation of poetry, science, philosophy and theology. In 788, the construction of the colossal Royal Mosque of Cordoba, with its attached school and library, was underway.34 By 794, paper mills were being constructed along the rivers around Baghdad, with that precious material being shipped to all the capitals of Islam. Book production in the east blossomed into a vital industry as textual materials, translators, scholars and tradesman all spread throughout the Near East and Mediterranean. A new sector of the economy was born, specializing in acquiring, duplicating or locating rare books. The new libraries and colleges of Spain were no exception. 35 The prestige of one's city or royal library led to a spirit of noble competition between the caliphs, viziers and deputies of various provinces, each wishing to attract the brightest scholars and rarest literary talents. As one history surmises,
Andalusia was, above all, famous as a land of scholars, libraries, books lovers and collectors...when Gerbert studied at Vich (ca. 995-999), the libraries of Moorish Spain contained close to a million manuscripts...in Cordoba books were more eagerly sought than beautiful concubines or jewels...the city's glory was the Great Library established by Al-Hakam II...ultimately it contained 400, 000 volumes...on the opening page of each book was written the name, date, place of birth and ancestry of the author, together with the titles of his other works. Forty-eight volumes of catalogues, incessantly amended, listed and described all titles and contained instructions on where a particular work could be found."
Source

The most profound boost to western Civilization which took over 100 years to digest was the collection of books from the Library of Cordoba which fell into the hands of the Christian Armies in 1236 A.C.E. That one year marked the fulcrum of the swing of scholarship from East to West and injected Europe with Aristotelian knowledge and logic that would set the Europeans on a path that lead to all its scientific achievements of the last thousand years. That logic (that finally escaped from the corked up bottle of religion under Islam and Christianity) led to the science and Enlightenment of the West and to electricity, the periodic table of chemistry, the harnessing of the Atom, trips to the moon and now the unravelling of the genetic codes of life itself!

But who of you ever knew about this date, 1236?

"With the removal of the long-standing al-Hakam family, effective cultural leadership over the region receded to individual cities, such as Toledo and Seville. Some reports state the great Library of Cordoba was broken up, or even burned, by the Berber insurgency after the expulsion of the Arabs from that city. 59 As chaos spread, the defensive line which insulated Andalusia from Europe faltered, and between 1085-91, Toledo, Sicily and Sargasso were all occupied by Christian armies. In 1095, seeing the successful mobilization of European forces in Sprain, and hoping to revive Christendom, Pope Urban II declared the Crusades. Cordova itself would not fall to Christian siege until 1236 however, and it was actually during this period of political and religious conflict that much of the cultural exchange took place through the scholarly pilgrimages Averroës and Michael the Scot. Yet by 1248 all of Eastern Spain had fallen to the Crusaders. This new regime enable a wave of Jewish and Christian translation, particularly of the 'lost' Greek sciences, in what one scholar terms 'the invasion of Aristotle.' So began the great resurgence of European thought and science:
Over a period of roughly a hundred years (1150-1250) all of Aristotle's writings were translated and introduced to the West, accompanied by a formidable number of Arabic commentaries...this amounted to a vast new library. The work of assimilating and mastering it occupied the best minds of Christendom and profoundly altered the spiritual and intellectual life of the West...such masterful Arabic commentators as Avicenna and Averroës - who emphasized the unreligious and unspiritual character of the philosopher's thought - precipitated a grave crisis for the intellectual leaders of the West...harmonizing all of it with the Christian faith constituted a tremendous task...it inaugurated a period of unparalleled intellectual activity that reached its climax in the 13th century, especially in Paris and Oxford.60"​

Just this one picture took me back to Istanbul, one of the finest and most important cities on the planet. This is the place to visit. From the markets underground and the water Cisterns, the modern city on the Western side to the sunset on the Bosphorus, you could get seduced never to leave the place your whole vacation. If, however, you take just one bus tour south, you will visit places like Ephasus, the most intact classical city of the Eastern Mediterranian, and Troy where the Greeks and Romans (and layers of civilizations before, centered their power over this area for centuries. (At the request of his lover, Cleopatra, Mark Anthony made the foolish mistake of transferring one massive library of Greek science to Alexandria which was later burnt up with the arrival of the Moorish Armies!!).

Of course, that was then and this is now. Back to the wonderful images brought to us by my good friend Nicolas. These pictures are beautiful. I'll comment more once the impact of the beauty of the first picture and the flurry of memories calms somewhat.

In the streets of Istanbul, vendors with hanging trays offer tea!

So that's what I'll have right now. Thanks so much Nicolas for this one impressive image.
 
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nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Thanks Asher for the historic vision… it is always necessary (imo) to have in mind what happened before in the place you're flying over…
I'd like to shortly add the enourmous importance, despite some recent changes of the laïcist republic and natural welcoming attitude of the Turquish client.
Of course I'm far, really far, to know an even small percentage of the Turkish history, but there is no doubt that, in its modern years, one have to mention that Mustafa Kemal Atatürk have brung to this country a Republic, and among many important and modern things gave the right to vote for women…
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk is present in mind of every Turk I met…
There is a lot more to say, maybe in another thread… Cem?
 

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
Thanks Asher for the historic vision… it is always necessary (imo) to have in mind what happened before in the place you're flying over…
I'd like to shortly add the enourmous importance, despite some recent changes of the laïcist republic and natural welcoming attitude of the Turquish client.
Of course I'm far, really far, to know an even small percentage of the Turkish history, but there is no doubt that, in its modern years, one have to mention that Mustafa Kemal Atatürk have brung to this country a Republic, and among many important and modern things gave the right to vote for women…
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk is present in mind of every Turk I met…
There is a lot more to say, maybe in another thread… Cem?
Definitely, we should stay on topic. The background of Turkey, while a worthy discussion, can better be conducted in another thread. What do you think Asher?

Cheers,

PS: BTW, Atatürk's wife Latife Usakligil happens to be a remote family member of mine ;-)
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Hi Cem,

When you talk about Paris, London or Rome, everyone here knows about it. However there is utter ignorance on the importance of the art, culture, science and medicine that came from the Islamic Courts of the lands of the Ottomans. At some point, Nicolas' images need to be anchored in all that. As Editor of OPF, I take the extra privilege of going off topic on rare occasions to put Istanbul in context of where we are today.

Now it is done, when people read of Nicolas' work here, they will have a feeling for the key role in this center of civilization and power on where we are today.

Not only should we let the light in the camera but also lift up the lantern to shine lights on important parts of our world!

So forgive the diversion!

Asher
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
So, back to the story… and for the fun…

This is a snap of how the boat looked when I arrived "everything ready"…

_45R7219_LR2.jpg


On this picture, 3 guys are missing (they are in the engine room) and 2 others in the small front cabin…
 

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
Hi, Nicolas,

You are indeed amazing, and your adventures as well.

The second of the frames you posted in your initial message (3040_Brumbaer_LR2.jpg) is just stunning from a pure photographic imaging standpoint (and very handsome art as well).

I am so glad that you are able to share these wondrous events and results with us. And of course thanks to Sinar for making it possible.

I am excited by the emerging "mainstreaming" of MF digital photography. You are certainly at the forefront.
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Thanks Doug
In the same time I do hope that quality of images and photography as well will increase.
I like and enjoy the competition for quality. These tools, though very expensive do help us to achieve showing our vision.
Of course this is also possible with cheaper and less advanced cameras, but imagine the image you like (3040_Brumbaer_LR2.jpg) printed 5 meters high? (16.4 feet) the boat is "only" 42 feet long…
 
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