The toning is from the different chromogenic black and white films I was using, which I think works better for some photos than for others.
The first other photographer I met in the neighborhood was Ali Öz, a well known photojournalist I'd met two years ago but he didn't remember. He'd been working on Tarlabaşı for the past year he told me, and I'd come too late. Everything was finished now; in the winter it had been like a war zone.
Later that same day I was talking to a guy who was getting ready to move back to his hometown of Bingöl in the east when a tall blonde German tourist with a big camera walked up. It's the narcissism of small differences I suppose--or maybe his presence was a reminder to me that I don't blend in as local as I'd like to think when in a certain Lawrence of Arabia frame of mind--but after talking briefly I couldn't wait to be rid of him and said I had to get back to work. He started shadowing me, though, which made me uncomfortable enough that I left the neighborhood for a lunch break.
Then, one of my last days in town turned out to be a regular paparazzi fest. Ali showed up together with a female Russian photographer in flip-flops that I warned her were a bad idea with all the broken glass and her guide, who identified himself as a taxi driver who did a bit of this stuff on the side. Here's his Facebook page, which you "subscribe" to instead of just friending him. Last a Turkish woman with another big DSLR (far right below) who said she was a filmmaker--wish I'd gotten her contact info--walked up. Some of the young guys loafing around on the corner borrow a passing demolition workman's tools to mug for photos.
A few from the Sunday open air market in Tarlabaşı and the flea market (louse market it Turkish) down at the bottom of the hill--I'm not sure the name of that neighborhood or if it's still considered Tarlabaşı.
Cell phone batteries at the flea market
All of the half-dozen Africans living in the neighborhood (including Mahomet, below) were Senegalese with the exception of one Nigerian guy who worked at a hotel nearby. Most had been here for a few years and spoke good Turkish. The Senegalese seem to have cornered the knock-off watch market in Istanbul.
collecting empty tea cups from sellers at the open-air pazar
The older man on the left of the below photo was from Van (everyone in the cafe was Kurdish except one token Arab, "our Arab" he told me) and spoke a bit of Persian. He had already had to vacate his home of twenty-something years and moved into a far off part of the city, but still came here because everyone he knew was in this neighborhood.
Below, the guy was laughingly accusing my friend from Van of stealing windows and doors from vacated buildings, a charge my friend didn't deny. Might have been a good picture if I hadn't set my backpack up on the table.
Another case of someone being unhappy with me was a man at this cafe who I guess lost his vocal cords to cancer because he spoke with a little microphone he held to his throat. I couldn't understand anything he said but he first protested and then after I took the below photo in his general direction jumped up in a rage. I told him, honestly, that I hadn't taken his photo and he was just a background blur and the others came to my defense, the cafe owner sitting the man back in his chair telling him to calm down. I finished my tea and left, starting to apologize and again promise that I hadn't taken his photo on my way out but he dismissed me with an unfriendly gesture.
The guy above had just arrived in Istanbul four days earlier. He and his family were migrant workers from Rize on the Black Sea coast, and he didn't want to talk about where they were staying in Istanbul.
Family members of the brothers who led me up to the roof of an abandoned building a few days earlier. The younger woman is holding photo prints I brought them. I spent my last afternoon in the neighborhood delivering photos as I'd promised, in some cases as a quid pro quo for taking them.
These guys below at a cafe were the most helpful: they knew most of the people pictured and took my prints to give to them (hopefully).
The photo lab (Kristal Fotoğraf in Sirkeci, which I recommend as professional and usually on time) used a fancy drum scanner on the last batch of film after I pointed out that their normal scanner had what looked like a long hair in it creating a white line on the images, and it gave me crazy color shifts with the Kodak 400CN film, with pink highlight and green shadows as below. The Ilford film again held up much better.
Later that same day I was talking to a guy who was getting ready to move back to his hometown of Bingöl in the east when a tall blonde German tourist with a big camera walked up. It's the narcissism of small differences I suppose--or maybe his presence was a reminder to me that I don't blend in as local as I'd like to think when in a certain Lawrence of Arabia frame of mind--but after talking briefly I couldn't wait to be rid of him and said I had to get back to work. He started shadowing me, though, which made me uncomfortable enough that I left the neighborhood for a lunch break.
Then, one of my last days in town turned out to be a regular paparazzi fest. Ali showed up together with a female Russian photographer in flip-flops that I warned her were a bad idea with all the broken glass and her guide, who identified himself as a taxi driver who did a bit of this stuff on the side. Here's his Facebook page, which you "subscribe" to instead of just friending him. Last a Turkish woman with another big DSLR (far right below) who said she was a filmmaker--wish I'd gotten her contact info--walked up. Some of the young guys loafing around on the corner borrow a passing demolition workman's tools to mug for photos.
A few from the Sunday open air market in Tarlabaşı and the flea market (louse market it Turkish) down at the bottom of the hill--I'm not sure the name of that neighborhood or if it's still considered Tarlabaşı.
Cell phone batteries at the flea market
All of the half-dozen Africans living in the neighborhood (including Mahomet, below) were Senegalese with the exception of one Nigerian guy who worked at a hotel nearby. Most had been here for a few years and spoke good Turkish. The Senegalese seem to have cornered the knock-off watch market in Istanbul.
collecting empty tea cups from sellers at the open-air pazar
The one evening I went out taking photos--and it wasn't very late, maybe 8-9pm--was the only time I felt unsafe in the area, despite warnings from Turkish friends not to set foot in the area at any time of day. During the day very few people were hostile after I explained I was a student and about my project, even if they didn't want their own photo taken (one exception being a large woman who really didn't want me photographing this dog).
But after sunset it seemed that everyone suddenly became hostile and suspicious. I thought I was gong to get beat up. One guy saw me taking a photo from afar and started towards me yelling Are you a maniac? at the top of his lungs.
The woman on the far right asked me and then the man on the left in the center and right photos for a cigarette and then for money. He ignored her and I pestered her with questions about her residence and what she thought of the renewal project, of which he had no idea.
The older man on the left of the below photo was from Van (everyone in the cafe was Kurdish except one token Arab, "our Arab" he told me) and spoke a bit of Persian. He had already had to vacate his home of twenty-something years and moved into a far off part of the city, but still came here because everyone he knew was in this neighborhood.
Below, the guy was laughingly accusing my friend from Van of stealing windows and doors from vacated buildings, a charge my friend didn't deny. Might have been a good picture if I hadn't set my backpack up on the table.
Another case of someone being unhappy with me was a man at this cafe who I guess lost his vocal cords to cancer because he spoke with a little microphone he held to his throat. I couldn't understand anything he said but he first protested and then after I took the below photo in his general direction jumped up in a rage. I told him, honestly, that I hadn't taken his photo and he was just a background blur and the others came to my defense, the cafe owner sitting the man back in his chair telling him to calm down. I finished my tea and left, starting to apologize and again promise that I hadn't taken his photo on my way out but he dismissed me with an unfriendly gesture.
The guy above had just arrived in Istanbul four days earlier. He and his family were migrant workers from Rize on the Black Sea coast, and he didn't want to talk about where they were staying in Istanbul.
Family members of the brothers who led me up to the roof of an abandoned building a few days earlier. The younger woman is holding photo prints I brought them. I spent my last afternoon in the neighborhood delivering photos as I'd promised, in some cases as a quid pro quo for taking them.
These guys below at a cafe were the most helpful: they knew most of the people pictured and took my prints to give to them (hopefully).
The photo lab (Kristal Fotoğraf in Sirkeci, which I recommend as professional and usually on time) used a fancy drum scanner on the last batch of film after I pointed out that their normal scanner had what looked like a long hair in it creating a white line on the images, and it gave me crazy color shifts with the Kodak 400CN film, with pink highlight and green shadows as below. The Ilford film again held up much better.
Kurdistan interrupted. The guy on the right below thought the project was a great idea and looked forward to the place being cleaned out. He said, a former commando who had done special ops in the east and in northern Iraq and knew how these people (Kurds) thought. They were just ignorant and it was no good trying to educate them and they wouldn't take care of their own streets or homes so why not replace them with people who would? A third guy was standing with them when I first walked up but as the very loquacious former commando rambled on he huffed and shook his head and then walked across the street to drink his tea on a doorstep opposite us. When the former commando laughed and told him to come back, what was the matter? he replied without a hint of humor, I don't like what you're saying; I don't like you.
Later the former commando showed me how his neighbors threw trash into the little alleyways that he owned on either sides of his shop. Women would throw their used pads down there, and he had to pick them up. And I wondered why he wanted the place to be torn down and rebuilt?
The fact that nobody had set his workplace on fire was itself evidence to me against claims of militant PKK types dominating this neighborhood.
Addendum:
With help from a friend I've come up with the explanation that this graffito below is a reference to Bülent Ersoy, a transgender singer whose version of the song "Dert Çekmeye Gidiyorum" (I'm going off the suffer) is the most popular one on Youtube (dunno if she wrote it or not) and who's apparently raised big controversy being publicly critical of military operations in northern Iraq. I guess the themes of transsexuality and govt operations against Kurds are apropos of the neighborhood...
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