The Story of an Exclusive Panoramic Photograph of İstanbul

What is it about?

Mysticism has been present in the history of photography from its birth. For the people of the 19th century, not only did technical innovations bring something hitherto totally unknown into their lives, but these innovations also brought about changes in their way of looking at things. What they had previously only been able to capture with brushes and canvases could suddenly be captured in an instant with photographs. This paper describes the birth of a panoramic photograph produced in the 1860s, a photograph hitherto unknown to the scientific community and the wider public. A characteristic feature of panoramic photography was that it did not aim to capture a single moment, as photography usually did, but to capture that moment in space. The emergence and spread of panoramic photography also meant that people were embarking on a conquering journey with this technical innovation: they wanted to conquer everything that came before their eyes, but they also wanted to take possession of what fell behind them while they were photographing and contemplating. From a high point, the whole city as it existed some 160 years ago is revealed, thanks to this unique photograph.

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