I had the good fortune this month to visit the Istanbul Photography Museum, located in what looks like a middle-class neighborhood only a few blocks from the major tourist sites in Sultan Ahmet. The museum maintains an informative website with details concerning its sponsors, leadership, and supporters, and appears to be a joint effort between art enthusiasts and government offices responsible for the promotion of the same. Opened in November 2011, it defines its mission as “providing exhibitions, collections, publications, photography archives, electronic and standard libraries, activities, and educational projects to further develop the Turkish art of photography.”
We arrived just as one of the staff was unlocking the front door and were welcomed in without fuss or hesitation, directed up a flight up stairs and into a lobby with a display of books for sale. A long corridor led off this space, with doors opening into five separate galleries. During our 40 minute stay we had the facility entirely to ourselves (something of a departure from many of the city’s often crowded museums).
