
Ara Güler obituary: a renowned photojournalist - tintinnabula
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/oct/30/ara-guler-obituary
======
nyc111
Growing up in İstanbul we tried to emulate him. We bought a second hand Zenit
range finder camera [1] and started to roam the streets of İstanbul like him.
Later we made an enlarger from a cardboard tube. Needless to say, none of us
made it to Magnum. It's just not enough to have a camera to take lasting
pictures. Obviously he was a master.

[1] Zenit was a Russian version of legendary Leicas of the last century. You
got a great camera but cheaper than a Leica.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenith_camera](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenith_camera)

[2] His website:
[http://www.araguler.com.tr/tr/](http://www.araguler.com.tr/tr/)

[3] Recently opened Ara Güler Museum in İstanbul.
[http://www.theguideistanbul.com/ara-guler-museum-turkish-
pho...](http://www.theguideistanbul.com/ara-guler-museum-turkish-
photojournalist/)

------
calcifer
Ara Güler is also famous for insisting he's neither an artist, nor a
photographer, but a journalist. Translated below:

 _" I don't think photography is art. I'm a journalist, not a photographer.
When a bomb explodes, a photographer runs away, but the journalist chases
after it and tries to capture the story. That's the difference between a
photographer and a journalist and it's how I have worked all my life."_

------
stonewhite
He was renowned for sure, but he got a lot of hate for taking pictures of
Erdoğan and generally not standing against him.

In today's political climate you cannot simply be an artist. You are
apparently forced to pick allegiances or the public will announce yours for
you.

~~~
gkya
All of that hate and criticism was an idiotic logorrhoea fed by absolute
ignorance of his art. Like him or not, Erdogan is a major phenomenon in
contemporary Turkey, and every single person is affected by him; a
photojournalist can't do nothing but study and document this phenomenon.
Hating Guler for that is like hating HIV researchers because the virus has
caused lots of harm, or historians or sociologists &c for studying Hitler.

~~~
gnulinux
I agree with this. Even though we hate Erdogan, it's clearly the most
important thing happened to Turkey since it's foundation.

Disclaimer: I was raised in Turkey and ran away from Erdogan's regime 5 years
ago. Currently living in Boston, MA.

