aya sofya

Hagia Sofia, or Aya Sofya in Turkish, is one of the most amazing architectural accomplishments of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires. It was originally constructed as an Orthodox basilica but from 360-1450, it was a Roman Catholic Church of Constantinople. When the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453, it was converted into a mosque and remained so until 1935. The altars and icons were removed and replaced with the mihrab and minarets.  The government turned AyaSofya into a museum in 1935 to end the religious conflict over the building. The pictures didn't come out so great because I didn't bring my gorillapod and it was kind of dark inside. I switched the program over to a high contrast mode for snow, and got this fun bright yellow tint on everything. We then edited this set of pics with some ultra high contrast and decreased saturation for added emphasis to this spectacular piece of architecture. Oh, and we made a video as well! Enjoy!

 

 

 

The Blue Mosque across the way is modeled after AyaSofya. It still functions as a mosque, so we didn't get as many pictures inside. We went in about 15 minutes before the call to prayer, so they started ushering people through it pretty fast. I snapped a few pics of the main prayer room, the blue dome, and the tulip carpets...but most of the others are blurry.