“WE’LL SHOOT DOWN THE SLOPE SECOND HALF, LADS”

Turkish photographer Aydin Buyuktas has created some mind-bending shots of Istanbul with a football flavour. Now if you’ll excuse us, we need some paracetamol and a lie-down...

Do you remember that game when Fenerbahce’s stadium bent in on itself, leaving Robin van Persie running vertically into the sky? You don’t?

That’s because it didn’t happen (more’s the pity), but one Turkish snapper has shown what it would look like if it did.

Aydin Buyuktas has unveiled a series of artworks portraying Istanbul landmarks looking as if they’ve come straight out of Christopher Nolan’s Inception.

He’s a proud Fenerbahce fan, so while there’s an image of the 50,000-capacity Sukru Saracoglu Stadium folding inwards (on the opposite page), naturally there are none of Galatasaray’s Turk Telecom Arena or Besiktas’ new Vodafone Arena. “I live in the Kadikoy area, quite near Fenerbahce’s stadium,” Buyuktas tells FFT. “My favourite moment there was our 2-1 win against Chelsea in the Champions League in 2008. It was an amazing atmosphere that night.”

His clever photography effect was achieved with the help of a simple camera, a drone that captured overhead shots and hour after hour of meticulous 3D imagery, involving thousands of overlays. “It took many days to create the image I wanted,” says Buyuktas. “Waiting for the right weather for the pictures was challenging, too. So many times, I had to turn back because of bad weather or birds attacking the drone.” There’s a sentence rarely seen in FFT.

Buyuktas’ inspiration came from Edwin Abbott’s 1884 satirical novella Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (there’s another). He also created an image of Istanbul’s Maltepe Park stadium, and other famous settings including the Grand Bazaar, the New Mosque and the Galata Bridge (all pictured right). He hopes to stage an exhibition in London soon, and has plans to focus on landmarks outside of Turkey this year.

So don’t worry if you see Stamford Bridge collapsing in on itself later in 2016. It’ll just be an illusion... honest.