Publications and Blogs

Photography occupies an important part of the cultural press of the daily newspapers. But this news doesn’t offer a critical or educational approach to photography. The news is much more based on information on the exhibitions and sometimes a little review about the exhibitions’ content, but nothing too elaborate.

Another bottleneck are Turkish art photography publications which are highly important in promoting a perspective of photography as art, and in introducing the work of both Turkish and international photographers to young comers and the general public The problem is that it cannot survive for many more years due to a lack of financial resources. Geniş Açı, which is published by the Geniş Açı Project Office, and İz, published by Fotoğrafevi (http://www.fotografevi.com/) are two famous and important publications whose past issues are still sold in bookstores and are collected, yet they no longer have the means to continue. The only active publication nowadays is Fotoğraf Notları (Photography Notes) which is financed by the photographers who publish it, not by a publishing company.

Technical magazines are the only ones to survive in the publication market. Those magazines are based on the new photographic technologies and fail to propose any theoretical or artistic content on photography. Two main examples are Photoworld (www.photoworld.com.tr) and Magazin Photoshop (www.photoshopmagazin.com).

This problem is also reflected in academia, where the major publications that are translated are always on technical subjects. Hence, there is a shortage of publications that delve into the artistic aspects of photography and Turkish publication would benefit highly from a few more translated theoretical photography books

Photography Blogs

http://www.serdarimo.blogspot.com/

www.engingercek.com

http://dilekaltan.com/blog/

http://blog.mustafanurdogdu.com/

http://muratgermen.wordpress.com/

Online photography magazines:

Fotoritm: http://www.fotoritim.com/

This magazine is online since January 2007. It publishes interviews and portfolios of renowned national and international photographers, news on national and international photography exhibitions, and articles on photography. Its main ideal is to perform as an independent media, to offer a wide range of articles on photography, and to create an online archive easily accessible.

Fotografya: http://www.fotografya.gen.tr/

The magazine is at its 23rd issue. The editorial board chooses a theme for every issue. They publish portfolios, translated articles and new articles according to that issue’s theme. They also include few critics on current national exhibitions.