212, the last weekend

Karaköy, 10 October 2026

This was my first 212 Photography Istanbul. Compared with other big cities, Istanbul doesn't get many events like this, so each one is a joy. We only made it on the last weekend and didn't get to every venue, but I'm glad we went.

We saw three photographers: Martin Parr and Frank Horvat in Karaköy, then Yann Arthus-Bertrand, a few minutes' walk away at Tophane-i Amire, the old Ottoman cannon foundry.

Martin Parr

Martin Parr is an era. I won't even start on his street series; they are classics.

This time it was Autoportrait that got me. For years, wherever he travelled, Parr had his portrait made in local photo studios: kitsch sets, heavy retouching, Parr as Mr Universe. So much self-irony.

It hit close to home. Whenever we go to a water park as a family, we have the standard photo taken. My mother has a whole series of them on her wall by now, flash, odd photoshop and all. They only get better with the years.

I didn't know about Parrjektif, his Istanbul, published here as a book in 2006. It's remarkable how differently the same city can be seen.

The curators did a fine job, too. Even the title sign stands among shelves of jars and crates of watermelons, like a corner shop.

It was his first big exhibition in Istanbul. Parr died last December. It's sad to watch the legends go.

Frank Horvat

I don't know Frank Horvat well, and fashion photography has never been my thing. His is a different way of seeing it. He took models out of the studio and into the street, onto the metro, into the crowd. A woman in dark glasses at a café, a dachshund beside her: I read it as a street photograph first and only noticed the coat later.

And all of it on film. I find that hard to imagine.

Yann Arthus-Bertrand

Yann Arthus-Bertrand is Sean O'Connell from The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. An actor at seventeen. At thirty, three years in the Masai Mara, photographing one family of lions. After that, a life spent looking at the earth from helicopters and balloons.

Aerial photography before small drones was something rare, for the photographer and for the people he photographed. You can see it in how they react.

The Horses is a great idea: a studio portrait with the backstage left in. The backdrop goes up in the middle of a field, and everything around it stays in the frame.

Tophane-i Amire is a place of its own. Light falls from the domes and plays across the prints.

One beam landed on a light box, right on the water.

On the way out, our own family photo.