Photography in Türkiye

Learning goal

You will be able to follow how photography has changed in these lands from the Ottoman era to today, through photographers representing four periods. You will get to know the studios founded in Istanbul in the second half of the nineteenth century and Abdullah Frères, who photographed for the palace; the large album projects through which an empire told about itself in photographs; and the costumed type photographs the same studios produced for foreign buyers. You will see the rise of press photography in the middle of the twentieth century through Ara Güler and Ozan Sağdıç, and contemporary and experimental photography through Şahin Kaygun, who intervened in the surface of the photograph. You will discuss the difference between how a country shows itself and how others show it, and question who was photographed in which roles in studio portraits and type photographs.

The question

When the lid of the wooden box comes off, yellowed cards with worn corners appear; a portrait more than a hundred years old is attached to each. In one, a bearded man in a fez stands bolt upright beside a carved chair; in one, a woman in heavily embroidered clothes, a painted backdrop behind her; in another, students lined up in rows in a school courtyard. On the back of the card showing a waterside mansion on the shore of the Bosphorus, a name printed in curling letters can be read: Abdullah Frères.

Your friend from the club wonders whom these photos were taken for. Some seem to belong to a family album, some to an official archive, and some to a foreigner's souvenir box. According to the older member, this box is a door opening onto a long story: Türkiye's photography story from the Ottoman era to today. Whose hands did this story pass through, and what, whom and how did photography show in these lands?

Context

In the movements in photography lesson you discussed the great transformations photography has gone through in the world and the question of who shows whom (Lesson 26.1). In the masters who caught the moment lesson you saw that Ara Güler built an urban memory by recording Istanbul over decades (Lesson 26.2), and in the masters of people and society lesson we listened to how those in front of the camera later looked at their own frames (Lesson 26.4). This lesson turns the same questions to the photographic history of these lands.

The story of photography in Türkiye isn't separate from the story in the world; the same techniques, the same movements and the same debates were lived here too. But in the last century of an empire, in the founding of a republic and in the streets of a fast-changing city, photography also took on tasks of its own. This lesson looks at these tasks through four photographers and four periods.

Simple explanation

Whose hands was photography in under the Ottomans?

From the middle of the nineteenth century on, photography studios opened in Istanbul, most of them in Pera. An important share of these studios were founded by Armenian, Greek and Levantine photographers. Abdullah Frères is the photography studio that three brothers of Armenian origin opened in Istanbul in 1858, and one of the best-known studios of the late Ottoman period.

A court photographer is a photographer officially appointed by a ruler, with the privilege of taking the palace's photographs. Abdullah Frères received the title of court photographer in 1862 and held this title in the reigns of Sultan Abdulaziz and Sultan Abdul Hamid II. The studio photographed portraits of sultans, statesmen and Istanbul's elite families, as well as the city's views and monuments.

The Abdul Hamid II albums are the large photograph collection Sultan Abdul Hamid II had prepared by having the empire's schools, military institutions, hospitals, factories and buildings photographed, aiming to show the empire's development. One set of these albums was presented as a gift to the Library of Congress in the United States in 1894. The albums carry an empire's wish to show itself as a modern, orderly and developing state; students lined up in rows, new buildings and orderly classrooms are the images of this wish.

A type photograph is a photograph, often staged in a studio, in which a person appears in clothes identified with a certain profession, region or community, and which shows the person not as an individual but as a "type." The Istanbul studios of the nineteenth century also produced photos of this kind for foreign travelers coming to the city: water sellers, porters, people of different religions and regions, with their costumes and without their names given. These photos fed a gaze that showed the East as exotic and unchanging. The same studios producing, on the one hand, the albums in which the empire showed itself as modern and, on the other, exotic types for foreigners raises here too the question of for whom and through whose gaze a photo is taken.

What did press photography change?

A photojournalist is a photographer who photographs news, events and everyday life for newspapers and magazines. In the middle of the twentieth century the press in Türkiye expanded and photography became an inseparable part of the news. Ara Güler, whom you saw in the masters who caught the moment lesson, is one of the photojournalists of this period.

Ozan Sağdıç is a photographer born in 1934 in the Burhaniye district of Balıkesir. He entered the profession in 1956 as a news photographer at a weekly magazine and over his long career photographed the people, everyday life and change of Anatolia and Istanbul; he held many solo exhibitions at home and abroad, and in 1998 received the title of State Artist. The photos of Sağdıç and his generation show a period in which photography became a tool not of a palace or a studio, but of the street and public opinion. Placed side by side with the studio portraits in the box, they show how photography's subject shifted from sultans and the elite to ordinary people. This shift shows not only in subject but also in form: the studio's painted backdrop and bolt-upright postures give way to natural light, movement and spontaneous moments. Who takes the photo changes too; it passes from studio owners holding a palace title to photojournalists searching the street for the frame that will fill a magazine's page.

What did contemporary photography try?

Surface intervention is the photographer reworking a photo with their own hand, by scratching, painting or drawing on the surface of a printed photo or one being printed, or by combining more than one print. Şahin Kaygun was a photographic and graphic artist born in Adana in 1951 who died in 1992. From the late 1970s on he scratched, colored and painted the delicate surfaces of his photos; with these interventions that brought photography closer to painting, he showed that photography can also be used not as a record but as a material. In the 1980s he worked with instant photos and built installations by arranging these small frames side by side and on top of each other; it is said that he held the first exhibition in Türkiye made up of color instant photos of this kind.

Kaygun's work recalls, in another form, the wish to come closer to painting of the pictorialism you saw in the movements lesson; but here the aim isn't to get photography accepted as art, but to question photography's limits. The road from the studio portraits in the box to Kaygun's scratched surfaces shows how photography in these lands turned from a recording tool into a tool of personal expression.

Visual evidence

You lay the cards from the box out on the table. The man in the fez and the woman in embroidered clothes, in front of painted backdrops, in heavy, formal postures; the studio photographed them for a family album, in clothes and among objects showing who they were. The students in the school courtyard, on the other hand, bolt upright and in rows; an empire's wish to show itself as orderly and modern can be read in every face.

At the bottom of the box a different card turns up: a water seller, his jug on his back, in front of the studio's painted backdrop. On the back of the card there is no name, only his profession written; it is clear a foreigner bought it as a souvenir. The same studio, the same backdrop, but a person shown not as an individual, but as a type.

The older member puts two books beside the box: in one, black-and-white, naturally lit frames of women working in an Anatolian village; in the one beside it, small color frames scratched, painted and arranged on top of each other. Your friend follows how the photography of the same lands stretched from the courtyard of a palace to a village road, and from there to an artist's table.

Common mistakes

Summary

Among the studios founded in Istanbul in the Ottoman period, Abdullah Frères opened in 1858 and became court photographer from 1862 on; while the albums of Abdul Hamid II showed the empire as modern, the same studios also produced nameless, costumed type photographs for foreign buyers. In the middle of the twentieth century, with photographers such as Ara Güler and Ozan Sağdıç, who began as a photojournalist in 1956, photography became a tool of the street and public opinion; Şahin Kaygun, for his part, turned photography into a material of personal expression by intervening in its surface and building installations with instant prints; this history is read with the question of who shows whom, for what purpose and through whose gaze.

Mini assignment

In this assignment you will research the photographic history around you.

1. Find an old studio portrait in your family, at a secondhand bookseller or in a municipal archive; research and write whom it shows, in which studio and for what purpose it was taken.
2. Find a photo by one of the four photographers in this lesson together with its museum or archive source, and discuss which period and purpose it belongs to.
3. Find an old photo of the city you live in and photograph the same place today from the same angle; put the two frames side by side.
4. In the old photos you find, note whether they show people's identities, whether their names are written, and whether they are presented as individuals or as types.

Check yourself

• Can you explain that Ottoman studios produced both palace albums and type photographs, and the difference between these two gazes?
• Can you say what press photography and contemporary photography changed in these lands?
• Did you question whether a person in an old photo was shown as an individual or as a type?

Glossary

Mini quiz

1. In which period and by which title is Abdullah Frères known?

• A) In the late Ottoman period, by the title of court photographer
• B) In the first years of the republic, as photojournalists
• C) In the 1980s, as experimental artists
• D) In the 2000s, as advertising photographers

2. What was the basic aim of the Abdul Hamid II albums?

• A) Selling souvenirs to foreign travelers
• B) Showing the sultan's private family life
• C) Presenting the empire as a modern state by showing its institutions and development
• D) Opening an art exhibition

3. What is the type photograph criticized for in the way it shows a person?

• A) For showing the person too sharply
• B) For showing the person in color
• C) For photographing the person only outdoors
• D) For showing the person not as an individual with a name, but as a type of a profession or community

4. Which best describes Şahin Kaygun's approach to photography?

• A) Shooting only news photos
• B) Turning photography into a material of expression by intervening in its surface and arranging instant prints
• C) Shooting only large-format landscapes
• D) Taking portraits for the palace

Answers

1. A — The studio opened in 1858 and held the title of court photographer from 1862 on.
2. C — The albums aimed to tell of the empire's development by showing schools, institutions and buildings.
3. D — A type photograph erases the person's name and individuality and presents them as a costume and a role.
4. B — Kaygun scratched and painted the surface and built installations with instant prints, questioning photography's limits.

Summary card

• Ottoman studios: Abdullah Frères, court photographers.
• Abdul Hamid II albums: the empire's telling of itself.
• Type photograph: nameless, costumed, for a foreign gaze.
• The press period: Ara Güler, Ozan Sağdıç; photography comes down to the street.
• Şahin Kaygun: surface intervention; always ask who shows whom.

Bridge to the next lesson

After closing the box, the older member took out the water seller's card and handed it to your friend, asking what they saw in this photo. Your friend said "an old photo, the man has a jug" and stopped; they realized they couldn't say more than that. The older member said that looking at a photo and reading it are different things, that there is a road that starts from describing what you see and stretches to analyzing it, interpreting it and finally evaluating it. How do you really look at a photograph? The next lesson tells how to read a photo step by step.