On a recent trip to Istanbul, among the group I was touring with was a lady called Penelope. I got chatting to her on the evening of our arrival, as part of the “getting to know the group” that tends to be the precursor to the first dinner of the tour. She mentioned that just down the road from the hotel was a set of steps that were very attractive in a sort of Art Noueau kind of a way, and that they were well-known because of a particular photograph by the doyen of “the decisive moment” photographers, Henri Cartier-Bresson. Since my principal interest for the Istanbul visit was to get photos of a place I’d effectively never visited before (business trip some 20 years ago), I of course decided that I would like to take a look at these steps and try to get a decent photo of them.

I subsequently discovered, by the way, that Penelope was a real photographer, interested in capturing that moment, hence, I suppose, her specific knowledge of the Cartier-Bresson oeuvre. I would never claim to be a Proper Photographer – I’m more of a chap who walks around with a Big Camera and occasionally a Big Lens – but even I had heard of him, so I looked up the image in question, and here it is, taken in 1964.

One late afternoon, on returning from one of the days out that were part of the Istanbul trip I was on, I decided to pop up the road and take a look at the steps to see what the steps looked like and whether it might be fun to recreate something like the Cartier-Bresson image.

Hah!

It was clear that I would have to get out at a non-peak hour to try to get a clear shot at what was obviously a very photogenic set of steps. So early(ish) the next morning, I went along the road again and assessed the situation.  Here’s the unvarnished situation.

The next thing to do was to try to recreate the Cartier-Bresson viewpoint. This was not too difficult.

Clearly, the passage of 62 years since the original image meant that some details had changed, but that’s not too much of a surprise. Tweaking of light levels was necessary, as well as converting to monochrome (with just a hint of sepia in it).

I hadn’t got access to four people to place on the steps, but I am pretty happy with the recreation of the look-and-feel of the Cartier-Bresson original.

However.

I love symmetry in my architectural photos, so my preferred view of this very beautiful staircase is from this viewpoint.

A couple of annoying bits of modern street furniture are in the way, and the easiest way to get rid of them is to reframe the shot.

I have cheated a bit here, and digitally removed some greenery from bottom right of the image. But Cartier-Bresson’s capture shows that the scene is better viewed in monochrome, so once again I’ve removed the colour, lightened the shadows a fraction and added a tiny touch of sepia, and this is the result.

There are various elements that it would be nice to get rid of – the QR code, the posters on the right and the plaque on the upper central section; but making it monochrome has lessened their impact and so overall I’m reasonably pleased with the result; worth getting up slightly earlier for, I think.  It’s rather more pleasing than what normally happens when I get the idea for a photo project, which is that it turns out to be a rubbish idea; and I’ve got what I consider a reasonable result from it, and I’m glad to have seen the stairs without them being festooned with people.