A Trip to the Market
Not just any market. This is the Edirnekapı Kuş Pazarı, otherwise known as the Bird Market, which takes place every Sunday in Istanbul. Hundreds of men gather here (I didn’t see a single woman) to buy and sell pigeons, which go for anywhere between the equivalent of $3 and $300 U.S. dollars.
There was a lot of handling and haggling. Sellers attached string to the pigeons’ legs for those who wanted to see how well they flew before making an offer. Buyers brought cash and their own cardboard cartons to take home their purchases.
My guide was Cenk Gençdiş, a local professional photographer and teacher. He gave me a brief orientation and then left me on my own for an hour.
Cenk’s intro included the following advice: Shoot fast. Don’t linger on any subject. Many of the men are leery of having their picture taken, especially after a woman from PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) had the market shut down for a while.
I shot relatively unobtrusively with a Canon 24-70mm lens. I found that several of the men’s jackets had distractingly bright colors, so I chose to change the images to black and white to keep the emphasis on the subjects rather than on their clothing.
