前言 | Foreword

1968年，我和家人去伊斯坦布尔玩了一天。那时我16岁，第一次尝试拍摄美国或西欧以外的城市，一座有清真寺、尖塔和宫殿的城市，一座充满烟雾缭绕的茶室和香料市场的城市。我对这种与我自己的文化如此不同的文化感到好奇、好奇并有点震惊。

三十年后，当我回到伊斯坦布尔时，我发现的不是我年轻时的异国城市，而是一种陌生而熟悉的东西：另一个边界。在那之后的几年里，我一直被社会的边界和边缘所吸引，不同的文化在这里交汇，有时会发生冲突，有时会融合在一起。我多年来在美墨边境拍照是这种持续痴迷的最突出表现。

伊斯坦布尔是另一种边界。它横跨博斯普鲁斯海峡，是东方真正与西方交汇的地方，是唯一存在于两大洲的主要城市。它既是亚洲的又是欧洲的，伊斯兰的和世俗的，古老的和现代的。大约二十七世纪前由希腊人建立，它在围攻、内战、瘟疫和地震中幸存下来。它的总被挫败的进攻者包括斯拉夫人、保加利亚人、波斯人、俄罗斯人、十字军和阿拉伯人。历史上两个最强大帝国的首都——拜占庭帝国和奥斯曼帝国——多年来，这座城市被称为数百个名字，从 Dersaadet（大致翻译为“幸福之门”）到 Deutera Roma（第二个罗马） ) 当然，还有君士坦丁堡和拜占庭。

今天，拥有近1100万居民的伊斯坦布尔是一个庞大的大都市，远远超出了其5世纪狄奥多西城墙的古老范围，因为棚户区将城市的边界向西延伸到欧洲，向东延伸到亚洲。它已经成为一个国际商业城市，这个国家很可能成为第一个加入欧盟的穆斯林国家。然而，伊斯坦布尔仍然沉浸在过去的炽热氛围中，这里有香料市场、奢华的宫殿和迷宫般的小巷。新的欧洲汽车挤满了街道，但船只继续在博斯普鲁斯海峡航行，就像多年来一样，在欧洲和亚洲之间来回运送工人。虽然该市的一些女性为争取更多权利而抗议，但其他经常身着长袍的女性则忠于过去。伊斯坦布尔是一座永恒的、轻快的城市，在黎明的祈祷声中，尖塔和鸽子从天堂升起，但它也是一个满是自动取款机和名牌牛仔裤的城市。

自1998年以来，我一次又一次地返回伊斯坦布尔，在蜿蜒曲折的街道上漫步，穿过从Cihangir到 Ayvansaray，从于斯屈达尔到 Altinsehir的街区；沿着摇摇欲坠的狄奥多西城墙蜿蜒而行；出没于塔克西姆的霓虹夜总会；乘坐渡船从 Eminönü到Kadiköy并返回，呼吸博斯普鲁斯海峡的清新空气；再次拍摄这个充满活力和忧郁的地方，这个有一百个名字的城市。

In 1968 I visited Istanbul for a day with my family. I was sixteen then, and trying for the first time to photograph a city outside the U.S. or Western Europe, a city of mosques and minarets and palaces, a city of smoke-filled tea rooms and spice bazaars. I was curious, intrigued, and a little startled by this culture so unlike my own.

Thirty years later, when I returned to Istanbul I found not the exotic city of my youth, but something strangely familiar: another border. In those intervening years, I had been drawn to borders and the edges of societies, where different cultures come together, sometimes clashing, sometimes fusing. My years of photographing along the U.S.-Mexico border had been the most prominent manifestation of this ongoing obsession.

Istanbul is another kind of border. Straddling the Bosphorus, it is a place where East literally meets West, the only major city that exists on two continents. It is both Asian and European, Islamic and secular, ancient and modern. Founded by the Greeks some twentyseven centuries ago, it has survived sieges, civil wars, plagues, and earthquakes. Its often-thwarted attackers have included the Slavs, the Bulgars, the Persians, the Russians, the Crusaders, and the Arabs. The capital of two of history's most powerful empires--the Byzantine and the Ottoman--the city over the years has been called some hundred names, from Dersaadet (which translates roughly as '"door to happiness") to Deutera Roma (second Rome) to, of course, Constantinople and Byzantium.

Today, teeming with close to eleven million residents, Istanbul is a big sprawling metropolis, stretching far beyond the ancient confines of its fifth-century Theodosian walls as squatters expand the city's boundaries westward into Europe and eastward into Asia. It has become a city of international business in a country that could well become the first predominantly Muslim nation to join the European Union. Yet Istanbul also remains steeped in the rich incandescence of its past, a place of spice bazaars, of lavish palaces, of labyrinthine alleys. New European cars crowd its streets, but boats continue to ply the waters of the Bosphorus, as they have for years, ferrying workers back and forth between Europe and Asia. While some of the city's women have protested for more rights, others, often dressed in chadors, are faithful to the past. Istanbul is a timeless, airy city of minarets and pigeons rising to the heavens during the dawn call to prayer, yet it is also a city of ATM machines and designer jeans.

Since 1998 I have returned again and again to wander Istanbul's warren of winding streets, passing through neighborhoods from Cihangir to Ayvansaray, from Üsküdar to Altinsehir; to meander along the crumbling Theodosian walls; to haunt Taksim's neon nightclubs; to ride the ferryboats from Eminönü to Kadiköy and back, breathing in the welcome shock of Bosphorus sea air; to photograph once more this vibrant and melancholy place, this city of a hundred names.

- ALEX WEBB