I went into town today to run two, just two, errands. And while I did manage to get them both accomplished it also took me close to 7 hours to do. And not because the errands were that hard. Because of the joy of 9 forms of public transportation and a bit of waiting in between. Lets just say I'm glad to finally be home.
So what did I do? I went to drop of my pictures for the Istanbul Photo Contest http://www.istanbulphotocontest.com/ at Les Arts Turcs and ended up having a really nice conversation with Nurdogan about his project and the competition. It turns out that this is the first year they are doing the contest and he has some pretty lofty goals for the competition. He expressed that part of why he had chosen to only hold the competition for foreign photographers is because there is a fair amount of photos out there by Turks, but he hopes that consolidating a collection of foreign pictures will give some insight into how foreigners view the same places differently an open a dialogue of understanding. He seems to have gotten quite a bit done with just three people and not much money (it is a non-profit organization). I'm curious to see how everything turns out. He does seem to have some hope for future years: there is a chance of the city putting up a display of the photos outside of Hagia Sophia for the 2010 "European City of Culture", he has plans to extend the competition to include Turkish photographers and lead to dialogues between photographers of many nationalities, he even has Turkish celebrities clamoring to be judges next year (a testament to how much coverage he's gotten by the press). When you combine it all together with his graciousness, energy and conviction you get a combination that is bound to succeed. (If you've ever been to Istanbul and taken some photos I encourage you to make a submission to help this man on his mission).
My second stop of the afternoon was in Fershane to pick up my race number. That's right, it is time for the Istanbul Intercontinental Marathon (ok, 15 km for me). Sunday I will take advantage of the one time of year that we're allowed to cross the Bosphorus bridge on foot. Even though I had to go a bit farther out of the city center to pick up my number and chip I have to admit that they were much better organized this year. I'm pleased at least to have my stuff, including a t-shirt and the bonus bag this year. They seem to be going all out for the 20th race. I just hope the new route goes as well.
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