RHYTHM OF ISTANBUL İSTANBUL’UN RİTMİ
ARA GÜLER
TURKEY’S MASTER OF
PHOTOGRAPHY
Master of photography, Ara Güler has an archive of
two million photos that he keeps in the third floor of
an apartment inherited from his father. But he does
not want a public museum
Ara Güler, the world-famous name
of Turkish photography, has nearly
two million photographs in his
archive, and most of them have still
never been shared. “I don’t want
my archive to be fall into pieces.
It contains many important things
that we are not aware of,” Güler
said, after opening his archive to the
Anatolia news agency.
During a visit to his office in
Istanbul’s Galata district, Güler spoke
about his 62-year-old adventure in
photojournalism. Born in Istanbul in
1928, Güler worked in a number of
branches of filmmaking in various
studios. In 1950 he began working as
a journalist for daily Yeni Istanbul.
A graduate of the Istanbul University
Faculty of Economics, Güler
also worked as the near eastern
photojournalist for Time-Life, ParisMatch and Der Stern magazines.
In 1953, Güler met Henri Cartier
Bresson and joined the Paris Magnum
Agency.
Selected as “one of the world’s
top seven photographers” in 1961
by the British-based Photography
Annual Anthology, Güler was also
accepted as the only Turkish member
of the American Society of Media
Photographers the same year.
06 • I S T A N B U L A L I V E
He has interviewed and
photographed a number
of famous people,
including Turkish President
İsmet İnönü, Winston
Churchill, Indira Gandi, John
Berger, Bertrand Russell, Bill Brandt,
Alfred Hitchcock, Ansel Adams,
Imogen Cunningham, Salvador Dali
and Pablo Picasso.
When asked if there was anyone else
that he had wished to photograph,
Güler said: “I could not reach a
number of men that I wanted to
photograph. I wanted to take photos
of Einstein, but I was not ‘Ara Güler’
when he died in 1955, I was just
an ordinary photographer. I could
not take photos of Jean Paul Sartre
either, because of my incompetence.
Also, there’s Charlie Chaplin. These
are important people.”
Güler defined a photojournalist as
someone who carried the mirror
of his own period to the next
generations: “Photojournalists and
photographers are always confused.
We are not photographers, but
photojournalists. We record our
period and leave it to the next
generation. This is not ‘being
a photographer’ but ‘being
a photojournalist.’ I am not a
photography artist. Being an artist is
different. I am fed up with this word
‘art.’”
He still takes photographs and
always carries a camera with him.
“I don’t know how many cameras I
have, but it’s above 50. I don’t use
an expensive $8,000 camera, but
a $600 camera. The result is very
beautiful, I like it,” he said. Two
million photos Güler has almost 2
million photographs in his private
archive and most of them have still
yet to be shared. “I go to India and
return with 400-500 rolls of films.
You can give five to be printed only.
When I go somewhere, I want to
take photos of everything there,” he
said. He said his archive had been
gradually digitalized and that most of
his known photos were now available
digitally. However, he has reservations
about the effects of technology
on the practice of photography:
“Technology has made a great
contribution to journalism, but it