Trabzon Otogar, Türkiye......some things never change? Well perhaps just everything?

Along with my 120 films which were returned to me last week I also received some processed E6 films which I also used on the recent trip to the Caucasus. E6 films were used merely as a form of technical experimentation for my exploration of 'Voyages'. In my last blog entry I mentioned that I had taken the 15:30 Istanbul - Trabzon bus service with Metro Turizm twice. I found this quite interesting, even from Ataturk airport in Istanbul to city's Otogar I had taken the metro at roughly the same time, sat in pretty much the same position/seat on the way to the Otogar and once there I coincidentally repeated several movements by searching for a Metro Turizm counter, asking for the service to Trabzon, going to the wrong one, and then rushing to the other side of the Otogar to find the gate! There was a shocking similarity to my movements and timings along this route, we stopped at the same service stations, I even bought the same items at each service station as per previous. It was almost an exact repeat of an event within a completely different frame of time. It was only at Trabzon Otogar which was when something slightly different occurred.

During my first journey in 2009, once I left the bus at Trabzon Otogar I decided to momentarily photograph the view as I left the bus, a bright, cloudless, steaming hot Summer's morning. I attempted to recreate the same photograph but once leaving the bus I was accosted by a bus station attendant asking me which bus I need. (obviously assuming for some reason I wouldn't be staying in a place like Trabzon!) I told him I needed to go to Hopa, Sarpi or Batumi and was soon enough ushered to the other side of the Otogar to connect to this bus and therefore I had lost that moment in capturing the Otogar the second I had finished my long journey through Turkey for the second time. Ultimately I photographed the Otogar from an alternative view, although this view does have some noticeable similarities this moment is different, I used the E6 film and the difference between the colour accentuates this difference, although I didn't think of this technicality at the time, perhaps now this really does emphasize that although some things can be at first sight incredibly similar, these journeys turned out to be very, very different.

Trabzon Otogar, 16 August 2009 9:00am. C41 Colour Negative Film

Trabzon Otogar, 4 January 2011 9:15am. E6 Colour Slide Film

© All images copyright Philip Mowbray