Experimenting With Shutter Speeds

Last Sunday I went over to Yıldız Parkı (Star Park) for the first time and had a bit of fun testing the boundaries of my camera and photography skills. I just thought I'd share them and ask what you think. If you want to see a larger image of the photo, just click on it:

















Yıldız Parkı turns out to be a romantic place. Just off the very busy Beşiktaş area, it's a very green and secluded hill where people like to take either their families for a picnic or their lovers for a stroll (and sometimes more). Here I saw a number of covered women, some from head to foot in black, walking hand in hand with their lovers, kissing them tenderly, or cuddling in the grass under the shade of a tree. In the picture below there are two couples, and closer woman is completely covered despite it being a very hot day, and the woman you can barely see in the distance wears a headscarf. It was an interesting sight for me, the foreigner. These women and the others I saw were covered up, presumably to keep their bodies hidden from the public, and yet they displayed their passions so freely. I'm too ignorant on the matter to make a stab at what it means, but it still struck me.