Ortaca (Pronounced ‘Or-ta-ja’) is a run down little town a good 30-45 minute drive from Sarigerme in Turkey, it’s mainly the half-way point to most tourist attractions for the western holiday makers. When catching a dolmus, which is the Turkish equivalent of a bus, to any of the nearest tourist areas, you will firstly stop off at the dolmus station in Ortaca. More often than not, tourists will literally get off of one dolmus and then jump straight onto the next without looking around Ortaca. The reason for this is that Ortaca is a very traditional and run down Turkish area, it’s mainly for the turkish people and has very little if anything at all for tourists.
When we first arrived at our hotel in Sarigerme, the tour guide advised us not to visit Ortaca as it was ‘not for tourists, it’s very dirty’. Little did she realise that, as photographers, this is exactly what attracted us to Turkish towns and Ortaca in the first place. As documentarist photographers, we WANT to see the real Turkey…we don’t want the tourist areas that are cleaned up and outfitted with as much English stuff as possible in order to keep English folk happy.
Within Ortaca, I found many kind and characteristic people who are more than happy to pose for photographs. One of the many things I loved about the Turkish people was their sheer openness to the camera, no fear or shyness in any shape or form.
We didn’t spend too much time in Ortaca during our week in Turkey, as stated this place is the half-way point to the more ‘attractive’ areas so we only had a small walk around between dolmus rides.
Here are some photographs from my time in Ortaca:
KJohnnyW Photography Blog 
Nice post by the way, some lovely photos.
I know Ortaca very well, like it’s just up the road 🙂
Thank you my friend, I’m glad you enjoyed my post.