Travel street photography connects me to the new cities I visit around the world.
Istanbul has long been on my travel bucket list, and images from my London street photography peers have left me itching to lose myself in its historic labyrinth of streets.
Travel street photography in Balat, Istanbul, where kids piled into the back of a pale blue car on a side street.
Wandering the streets with a camera and following the light and crowds is often all I need to feel fulfilled when abroad, and most photographers might agree.
It’s easy when you’re alone, but when travelling with a significant other, it tends to lean towards the boring side for them.
However, Istanbul brought a dynamic element that kept my wife, Kira, wandering with me: cats.
Istanbul street cats: a kitten under the streetlights near Galata, one of many Kira and I fed with the treats we carried around.
The Cats
Kira has come to embrace the candid, documentary-style images of strangers I make while we walk together. She’s observed what I do to overcome the awkwardness of street photography, as a lingering stare at the unknowing subject whom I’ve snapped may lead to the feeling that I’ve done something wrong.
There may be a (rare) confrontation – which I’m happy to address – but I would rather avoid it in the spirit of not disturbing folks in the places they feel most comfortable. Keeping myself in the feeling of flow when floating through a new environment is easiest and most relaxing when I feel like a fly on the wall rather than a fly that lands on someone’s face.
That’s for humans, but for cats, it meant something different.
We knew going into Istanbul it would be a cat hotspot, so we carried around kitty treats to feed those who responded positively to our kissy sounds and pss pss pss.
Kira and I housesat using TrustedHousesitters for our first few months after we moved to London from Canada. We love cats and dogs and long for our own. Though our travel-heavy stage of life at the moment wouldn’t be fair to a furry friend, we’ve joked about coming home with a kitty from Istanbul, or other kitty hotspots like Croatia (where we went in September) and the Greek islands.
What we came to understand is that the “street” cats of Istanbul are everyone’s pets. They coexist and have been a part of the city for thousands of years. As the documentary Kedi put it, “Without the cat, Istanbul would lose part of its soul.”
The People
Though I came to document people in their everyday lives, the cats around and with them were inseparable. Like people, they commuted and went about their daily routines. Cats had a big-city energy, unperturbed by our beckons and walking like they had a mission – unlike the Croatian kitties on Hvar and Korčula, who embraced the relaxed island life. It was as if the human stereotypes of city yuppies versus a slower countryside life translated to all the residents.
Knowing that a kitty wouldn’t be coming home with us – also given our trip continued to Bodrum and I’d fly away for a 36-hour side quest to Dublin, photographing music artist Dermot Kennedy for a Brooks Running lifestyle campaign – we took them on as our own temporary pets, too.
On the human side, Istanbul had some of the nicest people I’ve met travelling in recent memory. We made friends on the bus (something not likely in London), with others approaching me to ask about my camera. Almost everyone eagerly embraced my asks for a street portrait.
A street portrait in Balat: he was eager to pose with his polished vintage car as I walked by, beer crates stacked up beside him.
A man fixes his striped awning in Balat as a yellow taxi squeezes past, one of the Istanbul images I edited on the way to Dublin for my Brooks Running campaign.
My favourite street photography areas in Istanbul
Two neighbourhoods were standouts for me: Kadıköy and Balat.
We stayed in the Old City, which is close to the sights but very touristy. If you want good street photography and a more local side of Istanbul, take the 30-minute ferry to Kadıköy (about $1) for half a day, as it has very young and cool vibes. Then head to Balat for more locals and great street photography throughout. We walked there from Fatih Memorial Park, stopping for coffee at a cafe along the Aqueduct of Valens, and the walk was super interesting, with a local feel and a lot to shoot. Balat had a great view, too, and I’d strongly recommend exploring both.
Walking along the Galata Bridge, both above and below: people fishing over the top, and restaurants lining the water underneath
Along the coastline, near the ferry terminal (and on the ferries)
The classic mosques, which our guided tour took us through: Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque and Süleymaniye Mosque. They’re tourist hotspots, but always worth checking out regardless
Beyoğlu, the area around Soho House (plug) and Galata Tower: the cool, vibey one, where I saw wedding shoots, and that seemed to be a go-to spot for locals shooting fashion, portraits and street photography
A Bosphorus boat tour, where we saw dolphins and a different side of the city, just like taking the Uber Boat in London
Below the Galata Bridge, where the restaurants line the water and the seagulls follow the ferries.
Sunset by the ferry terminal at the Galata Bridge, with the domes and minarets of the old city on the horizon.
How I find hidden, busy spots in any new city for street photography
Whenever I’m somewhere new, or I’ve got two different destinations and I’m looking to do a street photo walk between them, I always look for the dark yellow sections on Google Maps signifying “busy areas”.
There’s no need to rely on Google searching, AI search, blogs that may be outdated, or aimlessly wandering, as this shows you where the crowds are right now. I use this strategy all the time as a London street photographer when looking to explore somewhere new, or if I have limited time and I’m not sure a particular route is worth it.
Most often, the best areas are not on the most direct route.
A döner shop we found by following the yellow busy areas on Google Maps, the same way I find crowds for London street photography.
This happened for us walking from Fatih Memorial Park to Balat, where we stumbled upon the Wednesday market (Çarşamba Pazarı) sprawling for kilometres around Fatih Mosque, with Kira and me appearing to be by far the odd ones out.
The Wednesday market, Çarşamba Pazarı, sprawling for kilometres around Fatih Mosque.
Fresh simit at the Wednesday market, where Kira and I were by far the odd ones out.
In an area where you don’t speak the language, it can feel intimidating. Kira told me to watch what I took photos of, and it certainly felt like an “intermediate level” situation where I wouldn’t necessarily be the best equipped for a confrontation.
Nonetheless, I carried on, using what I learned from a year of only shooting street photography abroad, which I wrote about in my guide on how to overcome the awkwardness of street photography. Candid shots in Istanbul continued to feel like my relaxed meditation – and not like I had to be ready for combat at a moment’s notice.
Candid street photography in Balat, where a man in a pinstripe suit took a call at a café table.
The One Who Got Away
I usually only approach people for posed portraits through street style photography during Fashion Weeks in Paris, Milan, Copenhagen, and most recently at London Fashion Week SS27.
I often find candid moments tell a more compelling story. They’re harder to find, and 99% of the candid street photography I make will never be seen. But when it hits and you find the once-a-year fleeting moments, or sometimes once-in-a-lifetime ones (like street photography of London’s solar eclipse), you get the natural and intimate feelings poses cannot replicate.
Capturing a moment is the competitive advantage photography has over all other artistic media. It’s what I focus on most in my portfolio.
On the other hand, a posed portrait is timeless: it becomes about that person, and you see a piece of them. However, the world is full of centre-framed portraits of the subject looking at the camera against a bokeh-blur background that adds little to no context to what the image is saying.
Ask yourself, what makes this portrait special?
It is always the story that accompanies it which gives it the most meaning.
Street portraits beat candid street photography for me when it’s part of a wider story (like Fashion Week, documenting the style of a period of time like editorial fashion photography), or when it’s about the character – their image (or what they’re wearing) tells enough of a story on its own to feel complete, like no further words are needed. But finding a character with enough of a visual story to infer from can be rare, or it takes intimate trust to have that emotion or comfort shine through.
On the other hand, I approach someone for a street portrait when I have a gut feeling that making a candid street photo of them may get me into a harmful situation, when getting close to take the documentary-style snap would ultimately ruin the chance I have to photograph them, or when I know I’ll be kicking myself when I get home, thinking they were “the one who got away” – in which case I’ll approach to appease my anxiety.
Street photography on the Galata Bridge, where the fishing rods line the railings above the Golden Horn.
Waiting for a ferry at the Galata Bridge, where even the cats were commuting.
All these things were true when I was walking home in Istanbul. Kira was busy feeding a kitty when I saw a man in a dark alley drinking a beer in the middle of the street with a dim light overhead. It was an otherwise creepy scene, but what made it seem all the more out of place – and aligned with the compulsion for finding characters to document, though controversial and absolutely not for everyone – was that this man was wearing a Nazi costume.
He had a shaved-in Hitler moustache and sat there drinking his lonely beer. The gloomy, dark, and sinister context surrounding him ironically suited the offensive decision he made to wake up and wear what he chose that day.
Given this context, anyone would agree he was an unpredictable and unhinged individual who deserved to not be engaged with. From a character-seeking standpoint, his presence and appearance create far more questions than answers – especially in Istanbul.
With the scene set as I walked by in disbelief, I knew he noticed me. I made a couple of further passes, pretending to check the menu of a döner shop.
I said to him, “Hey man, I love your hat. May I make a portrait of you?”
This followed how I approach and ask strangers for street portraits. To be fair, his hat was a giant, almost exaggerated in size, circular military hat that in and of itself wasn’t indicative of the political affiliation, so the compliment wasn’t a lie, as I don’t believe in creating a false pretense.
He immediately raised a hand, saying in broken English, “Big problem! Big problem!”
I tried not to act surprised and asked once more, downplaying the lift required by him and mentioning the scene he found himself in. It was met with another “Big problem!”, so I wished him a good night and moved on. He gave me a nod.
If I had taken that portrait, would I have used it anywhere? Probably not. Would I have been kicking myself for not working up the courage to do so? Absolutely. Other street photographers reading this may relate to the compulsion of needing to document what’s around them.
For a situation like this, I was happy to give it closure, be relieved, and move on. I, like many street photographers, have a laundry list of “the one who got away”, and I wasn’t ready to add any more to it. I did everything I respectfully could, and that’s all you can do.
I joined the Istanbul trip a day after Kira arrived because I was shooting street style portraits at Berlin Fashion Week for Pinterest, and with Copenhagen Fashion Week coming up in the weeks following, I knew I had my street portrait fix, and I was happy to continue as a fly on the wall – though getting up close, like flies do.
The Honeymoon
When editing my Istanbul photos en route to Dublin for my Brooks campaign, I felt the city had truly made a special home in my heart. Kira and I both shared amazing memories, food, and experiences there that we’d wanted for years. It was ultimately a part of our belated honeymoon after our wedding the previous summer, when we returned to Vancouver, Canada, for two months.
Above all, seeing the cats and winning over their affection, while only temporary, made us excited for pet ownership in the future. We could absolutely manage a cat today, but we are dog lovers first and want a future home with the strongest animal symbiosis.
When we’re ready for a dog, we’d be years into our potential kitty becoming an established cat. If it meant we got that dog in Canada and brought that cat overseas, it may react poorly to not being the only child, along with human children entering the picture, too.
Our plan? Dog, baby, cat, baby – envisioning our cat feeling like the bottom rung on the totem pole. For us, we’d like a dog that’s more like a cat, rather than the other way around.
In the meantime, a cat-share system like Istanbul’s – or the ones we cherish in our converted match factory flat building in Bow, London – will do just fine until then and give us our fix.
I hope the kitties we met are out there living fulfilling lives, and inspiring others who pss pss pss at them on the street.
