Living in Istanbul

“I looked down upon you from a hill, beloved Istanbul!”^【1】

A city where the outsider loses himself among the crowds, yet where every street whispers something unique to those who enter: Istanbul.

Sunset Over the Istanbul Silhouette (Photo: Muhammet Emin Bakır)

Sometimes we lose ourselves in our daily routines. In the rush of work, stress, and traffic, we forget to lift our heads and look around us; the city can feel like a massive concrete weight pressing down. Yet precisely in those moments of suffocation, we catch its hidden magic: in the shadow of a side street, in a seagull gliding past a ferry, or in the moonlight reflected on the Bosphorus.

At every step in Istanbul, a beauty awaits to be noticed. Let us imagine briefly: five minutes before the afternoon call to prayer, we step off the tram at Sultanahmet Square. As we walk toward the center of the square, the serene Rast maqam of the minarets of Hagia Sophia echoes in our ears. Then, the famous call-and-response (münavebeli) adhan begins between Sultanahmet Mosque and Hagia Sophia. As the voices blend in the sky, we walk slowly toward the Gülhane Gate, accompanied by the fading afternoon sun.

Let us pause this dream for now. For even this small moment of awareness is enough to refresh our weary minds buried beneath routine. The city’s noise recedes into the background, and Istanbul begins to speak to you alone.

Hagia Sophia (Photo: Muhammet Emin Bakır)

When Istanbul’s sun strikes the vast domes of its mosques, it casts a golden hue over the city that makes everything seem frozen like a scene from a film. But this city is not merely about that warm glow; it also possesses its own honest beauty in the sudden, piercing cold that strikes your face and settles into your bones. As the seasons change, so does Istanbul’s skin: sometimes a sweat-inducing crowd, sometimes the crisp, clear coolness where people huddle in coats on the ferry’s outer deck, defiant against the wind. In every season, the color of the sky renews the silhouette of the mosques and the spirit of the streets from top to bottom.

Süleymaniye (Photo: Muhammet Emin Bakır)

At the end of the day, Istanbul cannot be captured in words or confined to a single frame. This city hides in the propeller of a tired ferry, in the warmth of sunlight filtering through a mosque courtyard, in the honest chill that brushes against your face. Even when we fail to notice it amid the rush of daily life, it continues whispering something new to us at every corner. What my lens captures are merely fragments of this vast story. But I know that tomorrow, when I turn down another street, Istanbul will greet me with a new light that surprises me. Perhaps to truly live this city is to walk the same paths every day, yet see each place as if for the first time.