Barinak Café

The Barinak Café (Barinak is Shelter or Refuge) was erased in autumn 2011 because of new regulations about the gestion of restaurants on the sea front. It was a perfect place to profit of the sun in winter time and also a beautiful spot to watch the sun disappearing behind the marshes.

sunset

A man went to the seashore with his bicycle and sit on a bench to look at the sunset and the fisherman working in the bey. Fishermen are more like miners than fishermen actually, they dig in the mud in 1 meter of waters to find some sort of edible shells. The stay hours in the cold water with old worn diving suits.

After the Rain

We have around 60 days of rain per year, and most of the time it rarely rains for more than a few hours, the sun shines again in the next half a day. But this year so far we can count rain occurrences on one hand, the last was this week, in the evening and I didn't have the opportunity to shot. I do not like the rain especially (this is why I live here) but still I like photographs taken after the rain when the sky is clear with a low winter sun and the ground still wet. Beside my selfish pleasure the dams are damn low and we will face a difficult year if the rain doesn't show. Well, to come back to the topic this is from my archive, a day like the one I miss: after the rain, 15 Celsius and a sweet sun trying to dry out the ground.

The Tree and the thinker

A shot may have thousands of messages or none at all. Depends for a part from the reader.

My preferred tree

This is not the first post having this tree in a principal or secondary role. Let me explain the reason. In the early 90s this very place was just in the sea, than the council filled new land to allow a 6 lane road to draw traffic from the center and a large promenade for walkers and bikers to enjoy the shoreline in safety. Obviously the few trees there are not very old and I do not know why this one is planted there: only a poor meter or so of soil behind, block of granite and marble (yes we use marble to fill the land) to surround its feet and salty water just a meter beyond. The tree struggle to gain some height but stay far behind his cousins grown on high ground. That's life: one can only do whith the cards we get when the game begin, no mean to complain!
http://etiennecalamescapes.blogspot.com/2011/09/tree.html http://etiennecalamessays.blogspot.com/

Sunny days

This is from my archives, the last winter and a sunny day. We have 300 days like this every year in Izmir so it is not exceptional :) . This week we have classic autumnal weather, like a summer time in Brighton ;) . As the climate gets upside down and we see people suffering all around the world from consequences of bad settlement planning that are not able to cope with earthquakes, heavy rains or drought I have a special thought for people of Thailand, Italy and France who have been recently hurts and for our friends from Japan who still struggle to recover. 

After the Rain

We face less than 60 rainy days a year in Izmir. Scotland sees over 180 to compare but when I say rainy, well, here this doesn't means 24 hours pouring buckets, this is more like a strong rain for somewhere from 10 minutes to a couple of hours and often the sun shines again in the half day following the rain. Here was a typical view of such a day in Alsancak, the active commercial, urban and recreational center of Izmir situated on the south shore. This is made with my DMC LX2, a compact with a Leitz lens. The picture is masked as I would have made under the enlarger to reflect the max of gamut within the paper limited scale.

I bend but do not break

Very bad weather on the Izmir's shores, just a couple of hours without heavy rain and only a few taking a walk.

Kids

This series doesn't need much comments. Let's the kids enjoy the pigeons' fly.

Cold Winter Day

It's not always sunny in Philadelphia. Actually we are not at Philadelphia, just a couple of hours away from Alasehir, the modern name of the biblical city. But here too it is not always sunny and when the day are cold the seashore is deserted. Some couple share their concerns or their passions, a man sit alone or a chapman sits by his cart being his sole and own client. I confess I miss March and the early Aegean spring.

a glass of tea?

Drink a glass of hot tea with your friends, watching at the sunset? a 20th of november?