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Renowned Turkish photographer dies at 90

October 20, 2018 at 12:53 pm

Turkey’s photography legend Ara Guler during a photo project in Istanbul, Turkey in 2015 [İsa Terli/Anadolu Agency]

Legendary Turkish photographer Ara Guler died Wednesday in Istanbul, reports Anadolu Agency. He was 90.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Guler’s family to offer his condolences, according to presidential sources. Erdogan, who was also photographed by Guler, said the legendary photographer will always be remembered: “with his works that he left behind”. Dubbed “Eye of Istanbul”, Guler rose to fame with his black and white portraits of the city.

People gather to attend the funeral ceremony of legendary Turkish photographer Ara Guler at Galatasaray Square in Istanbul, Turkey on 20 October, 2018 [Ahmet Bolat/Anadolu Agency]

In 2015, he took pictures of the ongoing construction of Istanbul’s third bridge on the Bosphorus.

He worked for world-renowned magazines such as Time and Life in the US, the French weekly Paris Match and Der Stern in Germany and travelled around the world from Pakistan to Kenya and from New Guinea to Borneo. But it was in Turkey that he made one of his most astounding discoveries: an ancient city called Aphrodisias in the western province of Aydin in 1958. As he was returning from a job involving the inauguration of a dam, his driver lost his way, ending up in a village where locals used the antique architecture as part of their daily life.

Turkey’s photography legend Ara Guler during an exclusive interview at his office in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2016 [Ahmet Sel/Anadolu Agency]

In 1957, he was in France covering the Cannes Film Festival. He met legendary figures from the film industry, including American filmmaker Orson Welles, Italian writer Alberto Moravia and Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. Guler also photographed the likes of Winston Churchill, John Berger, Alfred Hitchcock and Salvador Dali, among many, many others.