Hagia Sophia, Istanbul

Hagia Sophia is one of the greatest surviving Byzantine architecture in Istanbul, Turkey. From its construction in 537 to 1453, it was an Eastern Orthodox cathedral under the Byzantine Empire, except from 1204 to 1261, it was converted to a Roman Catholic cathedral under the Latin Empire. From 1453 to 1931, the building was converted to a mosque under the Ottoman Empire. In 1935, the first Turkish President and founder of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, transformed the Haghia Sophia into a museum. Hagia Sophia was once the largest cathedral for 1,000 years until the completion of the cathedral in Seville in Spain.

The spectacular interior has a complex structure, with a central dome surrounded with extended half domes of identical diameter. The interior of Hagia Sophia is richly decorated with both Christian and Islamic elements, notably the mosaics and marble pillars with great artistic value. The mosaics either depicted the Jesus, St. Mary, saints, or emperors and empresses. While one the of most prominent Islamic element are the gigantic circular-framed disks with Islamic Calligraphy hung on columns which were added in 1800s. Hagia Sophia's long history as both a church and a mosque render it as one of the most unique architecture in the world.

New Mosque, Istanbul

New Mosque (Yeni Cami) is an Ottoman Imperial mosque in Istanbul, Turkey. It is one of the most popular tourist spot in Istanbul. The construction was first began in 1597 and completed in 1665. The interior of the mosque is spectacular. The central dome is supported by four large piers. On the corner of each pier are calligraphic plates with the names of the first four Khlifahs - you can see them all in this picture. This is quite common for Ottoman Imperial mosques. The wall is decorated with blue, green and white Iznik tiles, as you can see on the left side of this picture, although it is considered as inferior quality for the earlier imperial mosques.

There are plenty of opportunities to photograph beautiful mosque interior in Istanbul. However, the low light and high contrast scene render the shot difficult. What I use to do is to set the camera in higher ISO, bracketing (depend on the light, usually +/- 2 or 3 stops is sufficient), and fire using the high speed mode. 

This picture is resultant of manual blending of 2 pictures (0EV and -2EV) in Photoshop, and subsequent detail enhancement using Topaz Adjust. If you are really care about the noise caused by high ISO, take more shots and reduce the noise in Photoshop by using median blending (I will talk more about this in later post).

Enjoy the best of Istanbul!