I have uploaded the third group of our vintage photo and postcard collection to the website and added several photos to the previous two galleries : [link]

This third group is the one we like most. It contains portrait photos of people of Ottoman Empire and modern Republican Turkey from 1880s to 1940s. Ottoman Empire contained multi ethnicity (its former territories now host around 50 different countries of Europe, Middle East and North Afrika) and the capital Istanbul or then Constantinople / Konstantiniye had all these different cultures represented. So before the Ottoman Empire broke up for good, Istanbul had apart from Turks, many Greeks (or Rums - Romans as they were called than to distinguish them from mainland Greeks in Greece); Armenians; Bulgarians, Russians; Levantines (that is people from European countries that had Ottoman citizenship, Italians, French, Germans, Austrians etc.); Arabs and other Middle Eastern populations living in it. So as a collection of Ottoman Empire these photos represent people from different ethnic backgrounds.

In 1923 Turkish Republic was declared and great reforms were made in social life. So later photos such as this one here represent the westernization of Turkish people as a whole. The minorities still remain in Istanbul and elsewhere in Turkey but with changing conditions during WW1 and WW2 many have migrated to their countries or places like America. Yet they still continue to be represented in photos of after 1923 to some extant.

The collection is mainly formed from dealers in Istanbul. So most of the photos had been taken by photographers resident there; some are considered today as pioneers of wolrd photographic history and development such as the Levantine Ottoman Pascal Sébah from Sebah & Joaillier Company in Istanbul who invented new techniques in B/W photography; or Abdullah Brothers whom were the photographers of the Royal family.

Well I hope you also enjoy these photos as much as we do at home !!! I shall be adding on to the galleries new photos whenever I have free time.