Istanbul : city of a hundred names

In 1998 Alex Webb visited Istanbul and was immediately enthralled by the people, the layers of culture and history, the richness of street life.

But what particularly drew him in was a sense of Istanbul as a border city, lying between Europe and Asia.

As he writes, “For thirty-some years as a photographer I have been intrigued by borders, places where cultures come together, sometimes easily, sometimes roughly.” He has returned to Istanbul whenever possible, and the resulting body of work—some of Webb’s strongest to date—conveys the frisson of a culture in transition, yet firmly rooted in a complex history.