Figure of Christ - detail from Deesis Mosaic, Haghia Sophia, Istanbul

Haghia Sophia is on my top 10 list of favourite places to wander through when in Istanbul ...

There is an amazing peace once inside.  Someone once told me that while the cathedrals were built to create a feeling of awe and smallness amongst congregations, the mosque is more about inviting, tranquil spaces.  Having visited more than a few…

Hookah-Coals Production Line, Istanbul

It’s glimpses like these, captured as I was leaving a hookah cafe, deep in the heart of the Grand Bazaar area in Istanbul ... that make me feel I am seeing something of the soul of a city.

I asked permission to use my camera and then waited while the guys got back to the serious business of preparing the…

from the Istanbul Seagulls Series

On a full schedule, I took 1000s of photographs in Istanbul last year and too many were good.  Each time I went backto organise the files, I’d suffer overwhelm. 

Here I am, with a little to revisit the visit ...

One of the things I loved to do while living in Istanbul, was to cross the Bosphorous, traveling from…

A Gentle Kind of Peace ... Istanbul

I loved the peace I found in the Istanbul mosques that welcomed nosey foreigners.  This teahouse in the grounds ... you can’t imagine the peace.

Disembarking, Istanbul

I wish I had the courage but no, I am no longer the girl who climbed on the roof to listen to the band practise.  And I never did jump off the Istanbul ferries ...

Butcher, an Istanbul Covered Market

My Istanbul Window ...

I came to love this ‘window’ in Istanbul ...claimed it, in my casually colonial way, as my Istanbul window.  I have photographed it often over the years, measuring my progress as a photographer, seeing the instinctive become a knowledge-based act, still instinct- driven but perhaps enhanced by a growing ease with the technical.

It’s not at eye-level and that’s the…

Istanbul Street Cats Conversation

Ancient Istanbul ‘Window’.

Everytime I visit Istanbul, I visit this ancient ‘window’ to see if the rope has been cut ... to see if it’s still standing.  I love it.

The Mona Lisa Cafe, Istanbul

For we sit surrounded by objects which perpetually express the oddity of our own temperaments and enforce the memories of our own experience.
Virginia Woolf

Nargile Mouthpieces, Istanbul

More on these another day but for those who don’t know, the clue would be ... waterpipe or hookah mouthpieces.

Dolmabahçe Palace, Istanbul

I love this place ... Istanbul’s Dolmabahçe Palace ... built by Sultan Abdul Mecit back in 1856.  It is also the palace that Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founding leader of the modern republic, used as a presidential house in summers, the palace where he enacted some of his most important works. Atatürk spent his last days and died here on…

A Little Island Peace, Istanbul

The ‘Welcome to Istanbul Street Cat’

Did you know, cats own the streets of Istanbul.

I love it of course, and this one was particularly friendly, nudging my wide-angle lens as part of it’s ‘oh-my-god-you-are-so-yummy-you-must-pat-me-NOW!

If I had been in Istanbul today

I looked up and realised that as long as the Belgian sky is blue, with jet vapour trails heading in every direction overhead, then I’ll never forget living in Istanbul and the sight of container ships, ferries and fishing boats in motion, jostling for space and heading in every direction, criss-crossing the blue of the Bosporus.

It made me…