[EARLY OTTOMAN GUIDE TO PHOTOGRAPHY BY THE THESSALONIKI BONMARCHE] Fotografçilik rehberi. [i.e. Guide to photography]

IPEKCHI BROTHERS: SALONICA BONMARCHE., Ahmed Ihsan ve Sürekasi Matbaasi., Istanbul, [AH 1333] = 1917.

Original wrappers. Foolscap 8vco. (17 x 11 cm). In Ottoman script (Old Turkish with Arabic letters). 126 p., 11 unnumbered b/w plates, 8 numerous b/w ills., tables. Slight creasing on some pages, and slight stains, otherwise a good copy. 

First and only edition of this rare photography guide in Ottoman literature, prepared and published by Ipekci Brothers. This richly illustrated guide tells how to use a camera to take good and artistic photographs, and introduces parts of a camera. Some good photographic examples in this book as separate plates. 

The Ipekçi family, who had been engaged in the silk business for several generations in Thessaloniki, Greece, continued the silk trade for a while in Constantinople, where they migrated in 1893. The brothers, who first opened a store called "Hüsn-i Intihap" in Istanbul, and then the Thessaloniki Bonmarche, one of the biggest stores of the period, turned to filmmaking with Ihsan Ipekçi's initiative after the Thessaloniki Bonmarche was demolished during the arrangement of Eminönü Square. The family, which started operating the Alhambra Cinema, which was opened in 1923, converted "Paten Sarayi" [i.e. Skating Palace] into a movie theater and opened the Melek (today's Emek) cinema a year later.

Ahmed Ihsan was an important figure of the late 19th century and also the founder of a current in Turkish literature, "Servet-i Fünûn" [i.e. The Wealth of Sciences or Knowledge]. He established a prominent printing house in the Ottoman Empire, and he is known as the translator of the first Jules Verne translation into Turkish.

Three copies in OCLC 949475400: Bogaziçi University Library and UCLA, and University of California Los Angeles Southern Regional Library Facility.