Photographer #355: Murat Germen

Murat Germen, 1965, Turkey, is an experimental artist that often uses photography as his medium. He received a Bachelor of science in city planning from the Technical University of Istanbul and a Master of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Germen is a photographer with a strong conceptual message. For him photography is an opportunity to find things that people ignore. He focuses on the ordinary and latent extraordinariness in regularity. He challenges himself to create extraordinary work of things that are perceived as normal. For his series Muta-Morphosis he created bizarre panoramic photographs or multidimentional cityscapes in various places around the world. The concept is the combination of the notions of mutation and metamorphosis. The images are produced by the compression of the horizontal levels. Murat has exhibited extensively throughout the world. The following images come from the series Muta-Morphosis, Humanscapes - Street View and Way.

Website: www.muratgermen.com

Photographer #320: Pari Dukovic

Pari Dukovic, 1984, Turkey, is a documentary photographer who works and lives in New York. In 2010 he went back to his homeland to document Kirkpinar, the longest sanctioned sporting competition in the world. The sport is even under the protection of Unesco. However, it has become more than just an oil-wrestling game, it is an expression of their tradition and identity. This is year the sport will have its 650th anniversary and Pari will return to Turkey to document the event hoping to draw attention to the importance of culture today. Whether shooting boxing matches, burlesque dancers, street photographs of Istanbul or New York or even backstage at a fashion show, Pari's photographs are high in contrast, gritty and dark. The following images come from Fields of Glory, Venues of Immortality and Boxing.

Website: www.paridukovic.com

Photographer #097: Nazif Topçuoğlu

Nazif Topçuoglu, 1953, is a Turkish photographer. He has a masters degree in photography and in architecture. He predominantly makes photographs of staged young women set in period backdrops and engaged in a variety of symbolic actions and roles. His consistency has lead his work to appear at major art fairs such as Paris Photo. The following images come from shoots he has done between 2008 and 2010 and the last photographs below are from the series Curiosity & Experience 2004-2007.

Website: www.naziftopcuoglu.com

Photographer #073: Ferit Kuyas

Ferit Kuyas', Turkey, 1955, latests book Chongqing, City of Ambition was released in 2009. It is a series of photographs on one of the largest cities in the world, Chongqing, China. It is the city where his parents-in-law live. He stayed in the city that counts 32 million inhabitants on various occasions where he focused on the periphery of the city where the enormity might not be seen but rather felt. There is a natural haze in his images (although intensified by pollution). He feels the city is a metaphor for the current developments in China. The following images come from the series City of Ambition, Chinese Smokers and Shanghai Memories.

Website: www.feritkuyas.com