Angelina Hue

I’m sure many photos of religious edifices (mosques, temples, churches, etc.) have been submitted to this week’s “Intricate” weekly photo challenge. And I wanted to offer a different perspective…

Here is a photo that I took on a recent trip to Istanbul when we were walking around the courtyard of the Sultanahmet Mosque.

Built between 1609 and 1616, it is also called “Blue Mosque” because of the 20,000-plus handmade blue Iznik tiles that line its interiors. The Ottoman imperial mosque was designed by Sedefhar Mehmet Ağa and combines traditional Islamic architecture with Byzantine Christian elements from the neighbouring Hagia Sophia. This is the only mosque in Istanbul to have six minarets.

This photo captures the ongoing restoration of one of the minarets of Sultanahmet Mosque. The minaret was found to have shifted five centimetres and stones had fallen from it. From what I could find online, the minaret is being rebuilt, stone by stone with each one numbered.

I love the silhouette of the half-formed minaret, encased in an intricate ‘cage’ of scaffolding as workers move around it. There was a gentle breeze, teasing the Turkish flag that stood atop the structure.

This picture was taken with an iphone and edited using the A5 preset on the vsco cam app.