StillnessPhotojournalism biography

Ara Güler was the photojournalist who recorded twentieth-century Istanbul through its people. His pictures of fishers, workers, children, ferries, back streets and changing neighbourhoods show the city as a place where people lived, not as a postcard view.

Ara Güler

The story behind the card

Güler was born in Istanbul in 1928 and started as a photojournalist at the newspaper Yeni İstanbul in 1950. In 1958 he became the first Near East correspondent for the American publisher Time-Life, and his work appeared in magazines such as Paris Match, Stern and The Sunday Times. Henri Cartier-Bresson and Marc Riboud, whom he met in the 1950s, brought him into the Magnum Photos agency in the early 1960s. He called himself a photojournalist and visual historian rather than an artist, and he became known as 'the Eye of Istanbul'. He photographed figures such as Picasso, Dalí, Churchill and Hitchcock, and his pictures helped introduce the ancient city of Aphrodisias to the world. He died in 2018, leaving a vast archive.

Türkçe oku

Ara Güler, 20. yüzyıl İstanbul'unu insanları üzerinden belgeleyen foto muhabiridir. Balıkçıların, işçilerin, çocukların, vapurların, arka sokakların ve değişen mahallelerin fotoğraflarında şehir bir kartpostal manzarası olarak değil, insanların yaşadığı bir yer olarak görünür.

Güler 1928'de İstanbul'da doğdu, 1950'de Yeni İstanbul gazetesinde foto muhabiri olarak işe başladı. 1958'de Amerikan yayın kuruluşu Time-Life'ın Yakın Doğu'daki ilk muhabiri oldu; fotoğrafları Paris Match, Stern ve The Sunday Times gibi yayınlarda çıktı. 1950'lerde tanıştığı Henri Cartier-Bresson ve Marc Riboud, 1960'ların başında onu Magnum Photos ajansına kazandırdı. Kendini sanatçı değil, foto muhabiri ve görsel tarihçi olarak görürdü; “İstanbul'un Gözü” diye anıldı. Picasso, Dalí, Churchill ve Hitchcock gibi pek çok ünlüyü fotoğrafladı; çektiği kareler antik Afrodisias kentinin dünyaya tanıtılmasına katkıda bulundu. 2018'de öldüğünde geride çok büyük bir arşiv bıraktı.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Ara Güler

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Ara Güler was the photojournalist who recorded twentieth-century Istanbul through its people. His pictures of fishers, workers, children, ferries, back streets and changing neighbourhoods show the city as a place where people lived, not as a postcard view.

The story behind the card

Sources and further reading

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