Affan Coffeehouse

The Affan Coffeehouse in Antakya (the historic Antioch), a two-storey stone structure, was built between 1911 and 1913. The architects were French and the stonemasons came from Aleppo. It's been run by four generations of the same family*. 

As the dust from the recent earthquakes begins to settle, news about people and places that crossed my life begin to trickle through. I stumbled upon the Instagram account of the Affan Coffeehouse and from their latest posts saw that the upper floor has sustained significant damage from the quakes, but the ground floor is intact. Luckily, no-one in their family was hurt.

From the Instagram account "affankahvesi"

I was in Antakya as part of a trip in January 2007 and made the intro photo in the Affan Coffeehouse whilst enjoying a cup of tea. The man was totally immersed in the fortunes - or perhaps misfortunes - the cards were revealing. I wonder what happened to him.

A 24x30cm print I made in 2021 on Ilford Classic paper. The film was 35mm Tri-X.

*The info in this paragraph is from their website Affan Kahvesi.

Tri-X From 1967

Whilst photographer Elif Gülen was going through the belongings of her late father, painter Ercan Gülen, to her amazement she found several bulk rolls of film dating from 1967! That's two years before man walked on the moon. Amongst them were three 1000 ft rolls of Tri-X and one 1000 ft roll of Plus-X. 

The atelier we used to meet quivered with excitement when Elif arrived on 11th August 2018 with the worn metal containers. Of course, we all wondered whether the film was still any good and decided to give it a try straight away. Into the darkroom we went, opened one can of Tri-X, felt the film with "oohs" and "aahs" in the darkness, cut off a long strip and spooled it onto a cassette. After quickly shooting through the roll, taking pictures of each other fooling around, the film went straight into developer.

Well, in the video you can see the buzz. Yes, there were images! On no less than 51-year-old film. Then I made this picture, which for me is a summary of that day.

Flatbed scan from a Ilford WT FB semi-matt print

From left to right: Jason Eskenazi, Elif Gülen, Taylan Bağcı, Dinçer Dökümcü, Erdem Varol. All accomplished photographers.

~

In the wake of the two devastating earthquakes in Turkey and days of bitter tears, I wanted to write a post about a time when life was still pretty good. Yeah, we all had our own little problems, but looking back - it wasn't that long ago - I see that we were happy, enthusiastic. We were eager to get together. We published zines together. We found joy in our friendship and mutual love for photography. Beginning with the pandemic everybody started to drift apart, physically and psychologically. The economic crisis that followed - exacerbated by utter mismanagement - made life even harder. Here I am today, stunned by the toll of the quakes, at a loss where to look for hope. The political leadership is a disgrace.  Institutions are a wreck. And another major earthquake is imminent in Istanbul.