Blogs Archives - Page 16 of 17 - Josef Samuel Wedding and Portrait Photography

Istanbul: The Heart of the Ottoman Empire

Spent several weeks in Istanbul. It’s such a huge city and so many people! It’s quite incredible. I had never been in a mosque before and here there were mosques in just about every corner! Of course, it was the capital of the Ottoman Empire so they had some of the most distinguished mosques here too.

This is the Hagia Sofiya, one of the largest mosques in Istanbul and was originally built by Constantine before the Ottomans transformed it into a mosque.

The details inside the mosque are quite impressive!

Here we have Byzantine art in the Hagia Sofiya mosque. It’s been turned into a museum now so people can freely visit it.

By Josef Samuel|2021-05-06T15:29:02-04:00March 7, 2020|World Stories Journal|

Ephesus: The Ancient Capital of Asia Minor

Traveling through Turkey, we stopped by Ephesus, the ancient Roman capital of Asia Minor. It was incredible walking through the ruins and seeing just how much emphasis the Romans put into architecture, sculpture, their columns and temples. Truly a spectacular sight!

Sadly, I lost nearly all of my images of my Turkey and Israel trip due to a damaged hard drive. These photos I had copied to my parent’s laptop. They came with me for this part of the trip!

Ephesus in its heyday must have been rather spectacular. Walking through the ruins, we were able to get just a glimpse as to what the city was like. This city used to be a port city but the ocean receded.

Along with powerful earthquakes that destroyed large

By Josef Samuel|2021-07-24T09:09:54-04:00March 7, 2020|World Stories Journal|

Israel: Visiting the Holy Land

I recently had the opportunity to visit Israel! It was an incredible experience. It was particularly special because my parents also came along as part of their 50th wedding anniversary celebration :) We toured the Holy Land and learned a lot about history, wars, conflicts, and why there’s so much turmoil in the Middle East.

The photo above is a sunrise over the Dead Sea. Swimming in it felt like swimming in oily water, almost had like a sticky film to it because of the salt. But it was pretty cool, of course I had to taste it a little bit to see just how salty it was. And yes it was super salty! We stayed in a hotel with this as our view. An amazing experience!

Ceaseara was a port city built to honor Caesar by King Herod. Of course, he was

By Josef Samuel|2021-05-06T15:29:54-04:00March 7, 2020|World Stories Journal|