Master of the Butter Men

In Taksim, the chaotic "heart" of Istanbul, there is a salad bar with a secret. One of the guys who works there makes weird, "outsider art" sculptures out of butter and places them on the storefront display, replacing them every few days. I have been photographing this "master of the butter men" since 2011, here are a few of his works.

www.cmkosemen.com

A weird "lion," 2011.

A cobra snake, 2012.

Man with a mustache, 2012.

A self portrait made of butter, 2012.

A strange reptilian face, 2013. The guy called this figure a "djinn."

Dopey face, 2013.

A bull, 2012.

Face with tongue, 2011.

A cat or a mouse, 2012.

UPDATE:

This artist has become something of a celebrity in Turkish cyberspace, and weird butter sculptures have cropped up in numerous salad bars and fast-food stands since I wrote this post. Besides the pictures I shot, many people have since shared photographs of other weird butter sculptures.
Here is an extended selection:

Sign Painting in Turkey

Last week, I saw my friend Deniz Tekkul's blog about hand-painted signs in Istanbul and elsewhere in Turkey.

Coincidentally, I had also been collecting the same kind of images or years. So here, dear readers, is my sampling of hand-painted signs from the streets of Istanbul. They look interesting in an age of computer-manufactured blandness.

www.cmkosemen.com

Update (2018):

More than four years later, I published hese signs, and many more, as a new book: The Disappearing City: Hand-painted Apartment Signs and Architectural Details from 20th-Century Istanbul. You can find out more about it on the books section of my website!