Classical photography

There is a wide spectrum of professionals in photography today who went on to specialize in various genres (documentary photography, architectural photography, story-telling photography, fashion photography). Some are locally known, very few got to step up to international recognition. For many years, Ara Güler was the only internationally renowned photojournalist of Turkey. He started out as a documentary photographer for Istanbul and gradually moved to Europe to work for Paris Match, Time-Life and Der Stern for 20 years and he is the first and only Turkish photographer to have joined Magnum Photos in 1953. With his work he has contributed to many aspects of photography and he has paved the way for many photographers. Gökşin Sipahioğlu, founder of the SIPA Press agency is also a pioneer in the field and gained international fame during the time he worked in Paris as a photojournalist. Both examples demonstrate that the previous generation of photographers attended the school of photojournalism, traveled around the world for their assignments, worked in Europe and were Paris-based before they became reputed in their own country. Ara Güler’s work has been extensively based on Istanbul documentary photographs and his portraits of grand artists of his time such as Picasso, Dali, etc whereas the content of Gökşin Sipahioğlu’s photographs is more political.