Elska x Corinne Hotel

It was a long journey to Istanbul and really I didn’t know what to expect. Call it ignorance, but even though I knew it would make an interesting setting for Elska, for some reason I thought I wouldn’t like this city. I couldn’t have been more wrong. As soon as I got to Corinne Hotel, I was feeling good.

The place is full of art, and the building itself is art. A coffee in the adjacent café, filled with mix-and-match furniture, an old piano, birdcages housing singing canaries, and assorted antique bric-à-brac was my perfect welcome. And then when a cat walked in off the street and jumped on my lap for a nap, I instantly fell in love. I could have sat there forever, but I needed to get to work.

Can A was the first to get in front of the Elska camera. We headed down to the Egyptian Bazaar to shoot, and afterwards I invited him back to the hotel, partly because I wanted to shoot him with fewer clothes, and partly because I wanted to show off the hotel. I think Corinne seduced him too, because, he was quickly naked on the plush bed and feeling as at home as I was. In fact it was hard to get him to leave, but who could blame him?

CORINNE HOTEL, BEYOĞLU, ISTANBUL, +90 (212)-293-9494, WWW.CORINNEHOTEL.COM

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