Graffiti in Istanbul

Istanbul, Turkey, travel, vacation, street art, graffiti, photographyAnarchy graffiti + groovy guitar dude + the bohemian district in Istanbul = awesome photo


While traveling, I have a tendency to get caught up in everything... the architecture, the design, the food, the difference in weather, terrain and foliage, and especially all of the little things. I take pictures of flowers, museums and art, furniture in store windows, restaurants that I eat in, stores I shop in and almost every place that I visit. Anything I find interesting, odd or beautiful, snap snap, I take a photo... or two, or even three and four! So I'm pretty excited and anxious to share so many of them with you, but let me tell you, organizing the overflow of photos on both my computers is a mind-numbing pain! It's frustrating to try and group them, I'm doing it [loosely] by common theme or event/location where it applies.

Part two of the Amsterdam Flower Market is coming soon, you can check out Part I of the Amsterdam Flower Market. Today I am mixing it up with some images from my trip to Istanbul, Turkey in 2008. I went for business, plus a couple of extra days for pleasure. My aunt and I worked for a fabric company together at the time and were absolutely thrilled when we had to go to Istanbul with a few colleagues for an enormous fabric convention called Evteks. It was an awesome trip! Not only because Istanbul is AWESOME (come on, the city is on two continents!), but it's so rich with culture and beauty. My aunt and I have traveled throughout Europe extensively and we love to experience the food, the sights and the culture as much as possible. You really do learn a lot more about where you are visiting when you open yourself to seeing and experiencing as much of it [and its people] as you can. We were amazed at how the other people on our trip cared so little about experiencing the sights and culture of the city; or scared of trying the local food, such as the delicious meze - a tapas/appetizer type dish of the Eastern Mediterranean and Arab world featuring a variety of dips. Meze is everywhere around Istanbul, along with other juicy Turkish delights, pun intended, hehe. So yes, soaking up the food, culture, sights and talking to the locals is a must! Throughout time I will share with you a little from each of those categories through my memories and photography.

This post is a collection of my photography from Istanbul and the common trait is graffiti! In one way or another graffiti is present in each of the photos in this post. You might also like a post I did a while back which also features interesting graffiti called Da Vinci's Mona Lisa Becomes Star of the Graffiti World! Enjoy!


Catherine
xoxo

Istanbul, Turkey, travel, vacation, street art, graffiti, photography
This is some famous singer/wrapper/musical artist in Turkey, or perhaps beyond in other parts of the Middle East, I'm not sure. I caught a glimpse of her on the tv in our hotel room one day and vaguely remember. I spotted this graffiti down a narrow street during one of our long walking adventures, lol....

Istanbul, Turkey, travel, vacation, street art, graffiti, photography
I love this picture, especially that the graffiti looks sort of like a heart... :)

Istanbul, Turkey, travel, vacation, street art, graffiti, photography
Wise moment? LOL... I don't quite remember, but I know we were on our way to get a Turkish Bath/massage!!!! I'll post on that some day, what an experience... you gotta get naked in front of a whole bunch of other ladies!! That's it, I was probably worrying about that....hehe....


Who cares about the graffiti, lovely gates....... they scream for love....

Istanbul, Turkey, travel, vacation, street art, graffiti, photography
Lots of stencil graffiti here and there, this one is some weird alien type monster head or who knows what, it's blurry but there is better and more thought provoking one coming up....


A narrow street close to where we had our Turkish Bath, with a lot of interesting graffiti....

Istanbul, Turkey, travel, vacation, street art, graffiti, photography
Istanbul, Turkey, travel, vacation, street art, graffiti, photography
So interesting I had to awkwardly photograph myself in front of it, hehe....


As for the thought provoking stencil graffiti I spoke of a moment ago, this one says "colored" and has a screaming child with hair flowing behind them?? Hmm... is the fact that it's in black have anything to do with the vague term "colored," so as to insinuate race? Is someone out there seeing something I'm not and want to give their input?.....


Istanbul, Turkey, travel, vacation, street art, graffiti, photography

And there I am again posing in front of a door that has layers of wild and colorful graffiti... I liked the interest it added to front of the building :)


Istanbul, Turkey, travel, vacation, street art, graffiti, photography

(All photography in this blog post are my personal photos, please ask me permission first if you would like to use any of them on your site. Thank you!)