Olympic Flame in Istanbul.....

I had decided to go along to see the Olympic flame on its journey through Istanbul for 2 reasons; firstly because you don’t often have the chance to see the Olympic flame; and secondly because of the potential of there being some trouble after the Tibetan and other protests in Greece and elsewhere. I certainly achieved both of those; but also clocked up a few other lessons along the way in terms of both how better to use my camera and structure my work when I’ve finished taking photographs.

I turned up fairly early and deliberately got chatting away with the local policemen who wanted to practice their English and then also some journalists and photographers from national Turkish press (who also wanted to practise their English) and then they all jointly laughed at my Turkish…..!

Having managed to get into a good spot on the outside of the security cordon where the Olympic flame was being lit at the front of the route; I got more annoyed, as it approached. I could see it was surrounded by 3 deep phalanx of press, photographers and tv cameramen blocking any site whatsoever…… “marvellous” I think to myself…. All of a sudden though a stream of running Chinese guys in light blue shell suits, identical sun glasses and with microphones in their ears shoves the press out of the way; and bundle the terrified girl carrying the torch along with them. Annoyingly I couldn’t get one picture as it was blocked by other press; but I then had a choice; follow the flame disappearing off at speed, or the bloke being bundled off by police….
I duck past outstretched police arms shouting “press!” (lesson 1; mental note to learn the Turkish word for “press” ) and run off with a few others – leaping over crash barriers and helping one another climb a fence, we finally chase down the security guys and I’m elbowing with the best of them to get a photograph as he’s lead away shouting……as they put their hand over his mouth I get some more shots; and I’m also looking behind to try and spot if I can get views of mosques, other Istanbul sites or any police ID etc in the shots……there’s about 6 or so of us; and we’re running and stopping to get shots as they’re bundled along, or then overhead as they’re searched.

The benefits of having chatted with the local journo’s paid off though; everyone was shouting and one of them grabbed me; put a hand over my camera and said “enough, stop, stop……”; and “Inglish” to some dodgy bloke. Turned out I was about to be arrested by MITs, the Turkish CIA/MI6. I internally debated explaining the finer points of the make up of the United Kingdom and the 1707 Act of Union and how Wales wasn’t England; but decided it would probably be lost on the Security Services at that moment in time...

With that Zeynep my new buddy from BirGün newspaper and I leg it down the street whilst she in true Turkish style draws breath through a Gitanes ……We have the option of following the torch, but I take up the offer and go with her to the BirGün offices and use their facilities to email the photos through to Paul and Dean….. So many thanks to you both (and Silva for her offer) of help…..this was the moment when I realised that it doesn’t matter how well organised your websites, FTP uploads, and all your logs in have been arranged – if you don’t have your laptop with you, you have nothing effectively, (lesson number 2). It was a great laugh sorting through all the photographs the group had; as someone pulled up something really effective – but by the same count – I then realised setting up my ISO at 400 on a sunny day when you’re standing around is one thing – when you’re taking photographs at full pelt down a street with elbows in your face it’s a different matter. Too many “good” photographs were lost because they were just too blurred and whilst I may have been looking at composition, I had failed on a basic of shooting at a faster enough speed(lesson 3).

After that I had a chat with Dean and it appeared from what he was pulling up it wasn’t Tajikistan protests as I had been told/heard; but East Turkestan – similarly occupied as Tibet by China – but with ethnic cousins in Turkey who were protesting at their situation. Having had a chat with Dean we worked on the requirement for photographs to pull together a more complete story around this; and I headed off to the “finish” in Taksim square…. Running alongside the flame; getting bundled along by Chinese and Turkish security and finally at the fourth attempt on a separate entrance, using a combination of my UK driving license, my LCC Student card and sticking a camera in one hand and my mobile to my ear and talking animatedly into it thereby looking “busy”, I got into the inner security cordon. Quite unbelievable…..I got right up to the flame and the dignitaries….

Getting to someone’s house I managed to send the rest of the collection off to Dean where they can be seen at: http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav040308b.shtml. The next lesson learnt was Dean’s direction on where my job should have finished; not at the point of having emailed photographs across – but at having cross referenced them, provided the back up to the story and put exact names to the people and the situations and the cause of their protests. He’d been able to do that from elsewhere, whilst I should have pulled that together……lesson 4 for the day. I have to say, I loved every moment of it…..beats a day in an office anytime!