Working the copper
One of the best things about Iran is its people and their friendliness. I heard this many times from various friends who have traveled to Iran and I always thought it might be one of those things that you always say about a new country you visit: “Yeah, the people were really friendly!”. But in Iran, they actually are! Everybody seems to be interested where you are from and what do you think of Iran. The language can be a bit of a barrier sometimes, but at least everybody tries.
There’s no better place to experience this than in the bazaars. Esfahan (Isfahan) has one of the largest bazaars I have been to with literally kilometers of small and big alleys filled with everything you need (and don’t need!). Most people have no issue with you taking a photograph of whatever they are doing so for street photography the place is perfect.The shot below was taken in an area of the bazaar where there was copper everywhere. It’s a very popular material to make all sorts of pots and containers and there were many of these guys banging these things into their final shape.
It does get quite dark though so a camera that performs well at high ISO is a must. Because of this it was probably the first time that I struggled with my D300s. I was mostly shooting at f2.8 at ISO1600 and the noise was fairly obvious. I can correct most of the noise in post-processing with Noise Ninja, but I would have preferred to have better high-res files at ISO1600. I guess I just have to wait for the new D800 (or whatever the name will be!), whenever it will be released!