Elif and David Shoot the Streets of Baltimore by David/ Elif

David’s Testimony
I remember when I first realized there were some amazingly talented photographers out there in the mobile community. When I was invited to join Juxt, my first task was to interview another mobile photographer in the community. I knew before BP even asked, that I would find a way to interview Elif (@fisheyedreams).

To me all of her work is nothing short of magic.

A combination of her eye and her dedication to Hipstamatic is a perfect match.

Before I knew it, I was on a Skype call all the way to Istanbul from my home  in Delaware.

Having the first of many conversations with my new friend. During the interview I was pleasantly surprised on how friendly and down to earth Elif is. I think there was a mutual respect and comradery  right off the bat and I knew we would become friends.

6 months later the stars aligned and my wife and I were driving south to Baltimore to meet Elif.

Our only plans: street shooting and a beer or two.

We met in the Inner Harbor in the great city of Baltimore, Maryland.

We found each other right away and set off to wander the city, little did we know that we were walking straight into an Otokan convention, the streets were flooded with all sorts of characters in costume, gladly posing for one another as their friends were snapping away at each other . A street photographers dream! Certainly a fine day for portraits. I looked forward to walking side by side with one of my favorite photographers, I would be getting a first hand look at how she shoots. I thought we would end up shooting a lot of the same things, but as we walked, it seemed we were aware of what the other was looking for and not getting in each others way. Although we walked together it was in waves, each would disappear and reappear every few moments eager to share what we captured.

It came up several times how wild it was that we were here on this day from opposite ends of the globe shooting together, shooting street portraits, shooting Hipstamatic. How amazing that we connected  all because of Instagram, all because of Juxt, all because of the Mobile Photography community. And If that was not enough of a mind blowing circumstance, we were in the middle of the Inner Harbor overrun by  crazy characters. Here are some of the portraits we caught on our adventures through the Inner Harbor last summer.

Elif’s Testimony
Instagram for me is a place to present my work and follow some incredible photographers. Its definitely a social platform. You get instant feedback and you can follow up on people. When I met David on Instagram I loved his trucker portrait series. We talked about it and we followed each other. He lives in Delaware I live in Istanbul. We would joke about having a beer together but it was a long way off.

In the summer when I decided to visit my cousin in Baltimore that joke for drinking a beer together suddenly became quite possible. After crossing the big blue ocean he was most willing to drive to Baltimore with his wife Charise. I know a lot of us do meet people through Instagram  but the wild part of our meeting was the photos we got to take together.

As soon as we met we were very comfortable with each other. We started to walk around the Baltimore harbor.

While we were catching up on a lot of stuff I couldn’t help notice a big bear walking by. Then a woman that just jumped out of a Japanese animation film sitting with a samurai at a coffee shop. Suddenly I turned to David and said there is something going on around here.

As we got closer to the Baltimore Convention Center the characters that we see are beyond anything I have seen. There was the yearly convention for the Otakon event.

All these people were dressed in some game or animation character that were very open to be photographed. Well I know we can come across such things in New York City but didn’t expected it in Baltimore let alone the day I meet my dear IG friend for the first time.

So it was kind of magic. Not only because we get to meet from overseas but to take photos together of the wild and wonderful people of Otakon.

Photo by David

Photo by Elif

Photo by David

Photo by Elif

Photo by David

Photo by Elif

Photo by David

Photo by Elif

Photo by David

Photo by Elif

Portrait of Elif by David

Portrait of David by Elif

Portrait of David and Elif by David’s wife Charise

About Author

David Norbut

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