Creator

About Josef Samuel

I’m a professional wedding and portrait photographer, graphic designer, and website designer based in South Bend Indiana. I also love to travel and have visited numerous countries around the world. I'd love to talk to you about photographing your wedding or event!

Exploring Sofia, Bulgaria

Sofia was a nice, peaceful place. Very Soviet and a lot of eastern orthodox elements there. Compared to Istanbul, Sofia seemed nearly deserted as the population of Istanbul rivals places like Delhi, India or some big cities in China. Lots of people there, so Sofia was very laid back, chill and relaxed. It was a breath of fresh air :)

I took an overnight train/bus from Istanbul (bus to the Bulgarian border then train to Sofia) and I didn’t get much sleep at all because I was talking with the other passengers. We had some really interesting guys from Sweden, Denmark, Finland, a guy from Romania, and some others. It was just us and at like 2am we were all sitting in one train car right after we crossed the border. The lights were on and the train wasn’t moving. Maybe the conductor was still sleeping or something because we had

By Josef Samuel|2021-05-06T15:28:31-04:00March 7, 2020|World Stories Journal|

Surviving a Suicide Bombing Attack

It was early Saturday morning in Istanbul when a blast went through the air. We were out by the popular Sultanahmet square which is at the center of the historic part of Istanbul. I was with friends from Croatia and my good Turkish friend Ozzy (Uzman). Ozzy worked at the hostel we were staying at and we were giving a tour to our friends from Croatia. I had been in Instanbul for weeks and after getting familiar with all the sights, I would go with Ozzy and show Istanbul to the new friends that would arrive at the hostel. Below, here we are with the Croatian group around the same time that the explosion happened with Ozzy on the far left.

It was a cloudy morning but I knew something was very wrong when Ozzy got a call. It was a suicide bombing on a popular tourist spot. In fact, we had

By Josef Samuel|2021-05-06T15:28:46-04:00March 7, 2020|World Stories Journal|

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|