Since when have you been interested in photography? Are you studying photography?

I started with the camera that my parents bought for me in 2004 to take memoir pictures. Now that I study painting- art, I take my pictures with the same attention and enthusiasm I have for painting. Other than that, I don’t have an education in photography.

A good number of artists, including photographers, think that photography is not art. With the advent of digital technology, this debate is affirmed. The French photographer, Elliott Erwitt says,”For me photography is an art of observation” and he adds, “A photograph is finding an interesting part of an ordinary setting.” What is your take on this issue?

People love to capture the moment and freezing their good and pleasant moments in their lives. This is why everyone takes pictures. I mean it’s not hard to take pictures.

For me there are two types of photographs. One is “memoir photographs” taken to capture the moment by everyone and anyone. The other “photography” is about instances that someone with a power to see and creativity for aesthetic purposes. To be able to arrange the objective, the colors and the clarity, setting a balanced composition and appeal to the feelings of the audience. A photographer brings this aesthetic concern even into a memoir picture.

A person with an aesthetic concern is an indication that she/he is not ordinary. An artlover, interested in painting, music, theatre, with a certain cultural background. Anyone who releases the shutter is not an artist. In the same way, every picture taken cannot be a piece of art.
A photograph taken on creativity, aesthetic, the objective – the composition – knowledge on coloring reveals the artist in that person. Accordingly, we can see that photography is not an art branch, but not everyone can take pictures.

In Turkey and around the world, can you tell us about the photographers that you like and follow? Why do they appeal to you?

The person I always respected and brought photography to Turkey, Ara Güler. Koray Birand, who takes wonderful advertisement and fashion photographs and whose colors and models I admire. Gottfried Helnwein whose frames i follow religiously. The Spanish photographer, Eugenio Recuenco, with his fantastic films and extraordinary fictions. And Rengim Mütevellioğlu, my dear friend who is 16, who succeeded a lot in photography despite her young age.

Photography is the first stop for a lot of people in the movie business. Are you interested in cinema? Are there directors or country styles that you particularly prefer?

Cinema is one the three most important things in my life. I notice every detail and joke when watching a movie. I pay so much attention that sometimes I miss the main story. Sometimes I phase out in one scene, I cannot believe the area depth and the colors. I get carried away with the setting. I get stuck on the rhythm of music. I always think of something creative when I watch a movie. On top of that, most of the photographs that I took were inspired by my emotions when I watched a movie. I could have won an Oscar if my priority wasn’t photography…

I love French movies. It’s as there’s a rule in France saying “In our movies, colors will always be rich, the background always blurred and the music always perfect”… I’ve seen a documentary on Stanley Kubrick a while ago, and I found out that Kubrick grew to love cinema thanks to photography, and that he sold his first photographs to “Look” magazine when he was 16. Then I said; “Wow, then I still have the chance to become a director. It’s not too late for anything.” You never know, maybe I’ll sell my first photograps to “Bak Magazine” in a few months :)

To understand the jokes in a movie makes me smile unintentionally. That’s why I love long and insignificant dialogues, and the cliché scenes. Hence, I love and respect Quentin Tarantino. For example the infamous trunk scenes in Jackie Brown, Kill Bill and Reservoir Dogs. Or the famous feet scenes which made me love my own feet and even photograph them. You can say “Hmm, this is definitely a Tarantino movie” and I think that ia really important. Your style is accepted by all and they name that style after you.

Once, I was planning on making huge hands with paste, put them on the hands of my model and take such pictures. And I would do that. Up until Michel Gondry turned out to be faster than I. I was upset at first, but then I acknowledged that there is a very successful director who works in the way that I also like with an immense imagination. I was not that disappointed after Eternal Sunshine though, because I wasn’t taking pictures back then. I know Michel Gondry now, and he makes movies in the exact same way that I would if I could. He tells me to be inspired by my dreams and take pictures.

We see that you use the wear-out effect in your photographs either by digital interventions or color arrangements. Sometimes, it is obvious that the past steps out in the figures and the objects of your frames. Can we say that this originates from a special interest in or craving for the past?

The longing for the past is easy to explain. A world that’s not too dirty, with a healthy ozone layer. Where people don’t spit on streets, where they don’t kill each other because of a look. Good songs but crappy recording, black and white movies, phones with huge handsets, houses smelling of mould and humidity, carriages, phonographs, more delicious vegetables, Alaska frigo, the Melek gums, televisions with dual color, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and a lot more who I couldn’t see, that I couldn’t taste or smell or hear…

I walk into a second hand store and look around for hours. I see a dusty mirror. Who knows who looked into that mirror before, whose images this mirror had recorded in it? I look at a frame with a broken glass. I wonder whose photograph it used to hold. Where is that person now?

I throw a longing look at old records. Who had such great taste in music? I look at old books, smelling them. I feel that “old odor” deep inside. Yellow pages, folded pages… And old İstanbul. I jump on the tram in Beyoğlu with my wooden suitcase.
Then suddenly I get on the ferry. Who knows where I’m going? I don’t know, it was such a long time ago…

If you had a limitless budget, what kind of project would you have created? Who would you work with, which models would you prefer to use?

I would want to capture surprising moments. Things that noone could dare to do before. A girl swimming in the air, a boy walking on water. A little man trying to flip the pages of a huge book, a woman in a red dress jumping off of a tall building. Even one minute with Eugenio Recuenco, who realizes what I cannot even start to think about, would be sufficient for me. I have to have lots of models with high malars, wavy red hair, white skinned and green eyes. Also I have to have a few twins and triplets…

You had your first exhibition experience last month in Istanbul Street Style. Can you tell us how you felt when you got the offer and the day of the exhibition?

Now that I’m 16 and I’ve never been involved with something like that before, I was really excited and happy. Istanbul Street Style turned out to be a turning point for me. I felt that I was socializing more with every passing moment and that I shared my photographs with more people. My photograps hanging on those stone walls and people going over to talk about them. The best thing was walking around with my camera and taking pictures of people talking about in front of my photographs. It was one of most perfect moments of my 16 years in life (including the 5 that I cannot remember). I want to experience that everyday.

You are just 16 and you have a long life ahead of you where you can perform your art. Where do you see yourself in the future? What are you expectations from life?

I am in my studio with high ceilings, green walls and inlaid floor, waiting for my base paint to dry on my canvas. I get bored and go to my dark room to print the photographs that I took a few days ago. Then I hang them on a rope with latches. I place the second base on my canvas while waiting for the photographs to dry. I grab my camera and my yellow-paged notebook to dive into the old streets of the city. I draw a few cats, I take a picture of the little blonde girl who smiles at the old man selling balloons. I eat tiramisu in a café and go back to my studio. And what do I see? My cat spilled all the turpentine on the floor. The brushes, the paint are all on the floor. I put my favorite song on and mop the floors, pick up the mess of colors. And suddenly a wave of inspiration takes over me. I paint on my canvas the little blonde girl flying because of all the balloons in her hand that she cannot handle. The girl with a green velvet dress, lace socks and a red balloon.

The theme of the 8th issue of Bak is “Me”. What does it bring to your mind? What would you say if you had to define yourself in three word or one sentence?

Emotion, nostalgia, hiccup.