FOREWORD

BOOK

PROJECT OF SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

WHEN I FIRST SET my mind on publishing a book of my own photographs, my main intention was to build a selection to share with friends and enthusiasts while another was to create an opportunity to confront myself. In this way, an amateur avocation would be documented and presented to the public as well as a personal challenge would be set up to test myself. Those were the first steps for this project.
Then, a book was supposed to have a theme. Since I had not been taking photographs with any pre-conceived subject in mind, I had to search for it by going through my archive. As an initial theme, Yeryüzü “The Face of the Earth” did not look too bad. While in Turkish “place” and “earth” were signified by one word—yer—and the “earth” was signified with the addition of “the face” to “the earth” as yeryüzü, not all the places had the faces to meet this native literalism. I happened to be sidetracked by a word play. If a theme were to present itself, it would emerge from the photographs themselves and from my looking at them. Not from words. Still the right path lay through the naked eye of the amateur spirit—the eye that had been open to sight and chance encounters as before. So, I returned to sifting through my archive and started feeling that I was shooting again, but this time with no camera in hand.
As I was thinking about the book, I noticed that I considered the harmony between facing pages paramount. While I was going through my photographs trying to establish pairs, I discovered that photographs were finding their partners much more easily than I would have thought. Some of them were even displaying almost identical scenes. Before my much more relaxed gaze now, I was witnessing the slow but natural matching of photographs without my matchmaking. So there it was, a theme was “developing” before my eyes. 
In this selection, you might find differences in the dates and places of the photographs, however, portraits, scenes, expressions or compositions would link with each other across the pages in an intended accord. So far, 40 countries and ten years have not gotten in between the effortless matching of these pairs along their similarities. Some of those pairs might reveal themselves readily with obvious interconnections whereas some others might need you to discover them. All in all, I meant this selection not to be boring for you but rather a fun expedition to explore similarities set in differences. 
Beyond their subjects, the inherent photographic elements such as light, color, composition, expression, perspective and view point also established similarities and revealed each others’ differences in a much better way. Rather than being just similar, they were indeed all different photographs. In spite of having thought briefly to entitle the book Buluşmalar—Rendezvous—stressing only similarities, I decided on the title Aynı Ayrı, since I knew that all those meetings were more valuable if they were to be between two different entities.
Besides matching the photographs, I have also tried to select the frames which I remembered to have taken with pleasure and frames which I assumed would be pleasurable to your eyes. Occasionally, I have used matches, contrasts and color harmony. I tried to assort different places and faces from around the world. I have also especially chosen those standing out from the rest with their photo-graphic qualities such as light, composition, angle and depth. Naturally, of course, I have wanted to include slices from my own life. In short, I have tried to assemble together photographs to reflect the richness and diversity of life. In this, you will find photographs which differ from one another in terms of subject, style, technique and interpretation. You will also see that I had encountered that child in Turkey in Morocco; that man in Morocco in India; that scenery in India in Cuba; that detail in Cuba in Asia; that building in Asia in Europe. This book is the meeting place of all those encounters.
What I mean to convey with this book project is that one should love and live one’s moments which for me is almost synonymous with taking photographs. As in that cliché of one’s life running before one’s eyes as in moving frames of a film, to how many frames might those moments add up? Can one count them ever? How many of them can remain in memory? For me, to cast that moment in permanence and to find happiness by reaching for it again are the same as framing it.
As a businessman under an extremely heavy work load, my wish is to encourage others and show that one can still carve a certain “beauty” around one’s busy life. While enjoying each of its strands, photography occupies a special place in my effort to live a “whole” life made up of a bouquet of family, work, social responsibility and sports. What relaxes and fixes me in such concentration as to make me hold my breath and makes me forget everything else is that moment when I take that photograph. That place, that person, that building, that cloud, that mountain; whatever that is, with that moment, it forever becomes my own. 
For “my moments”, which I have dared to entrust to you between the covers of a book, a new life is ready to start now.

WHEN I FIRST SET my mind on publishing a book of my own photographs, my main intention was to build a selection to share with friends and enthusiasts while another was to create an opportunity to confront myself. In this way, an amateur avocation would be documented and presented to the public as well as a personal challenge would be set up to test myself. Those were the first steps for this project.

Then, a book was supposed to have a theme. Since I had not been taking photographs with any pre-conceived subject in mind, I had to search for it by going through my archive. As an initial theme, Yeryüzü “The Face of the Earth” did not look too bad. While in Turkish “place” and “earth” were signified by one word—yer—and the “earth” was signified with the addition of “the face” to “the earth” as yeryüzü, not all the places had the faces to meet this native literalism. I happened to be sidetracked by a word play. If a theme were to present itself, it would emerge from the photographs themselves and from my looking at them. Not from words. Still the right path lay through the naked eye of the amateur spirit—the eye that had been open to sight and chance encounters as before. So, I returned to sifting through my archive and started feeling that I was shooting again, but this time with no camera in hand.

As I was thinking about the book, I noticed that I considered the harmony between facing pages paramount. While I was going through my photographs trying to establish pairs, I discovered that photographs were finding their partners much more easily than I would have thought. Some of them were even displaying almost identical scenes. Before my much more relaxed gaze now, I was witnessing the slow but natural matching of photographs without my matchmaking. So there it was, a theme was “developing” before my eyes. 
In this selection, you might find differences in the dates and places of the photographs, however, portraits, scenes, expressions or compositions would link with each other across the pages in an intended accord. So far, 40 countries and ten years have not gotten in between the effortless matching of these pairs along their similarities. Some of those pairs might reveal themselves readily with obvious interconnections whereas some others might need you to discover them. All in all, I meant this selection not to be boring for you but rather a fun expedition to explore similarities set in differences. 

Beyond their subjects, the inherent photographic elements such as light, color, composition, expression, perspective and view point also established similarities and revealed each others’ differences in a much better way. Rather than being just similar, they were indeed all different photographs. In spite of having thought briefly to entitle the book Buluşmalar—Rendezvous—stressing only similarities, I decided on the title Aynı Ayrı, since I knew that all those meetings were more valuable if they were to be between two different entities.

Besides matching the photographs, I have also tried to select the frames which I remembered to have taken with pleasure and frames which I assumed would be pleasurable to your eyes. Occasionally, I have used matches, contrasts and color harmony. I tried to assort different places and faces from around the world. I have also especially chosen those standing out from the rest with their photo-graphic qualities such as light, composition, angle and depth. Naturally, of course, I have wanted to include slices from my own life. In short, I have tried to assemble together photographs to reflect the richness and diversity of life. In this, you will find photographs which differ from one another in terms of subject, style, technique and interpretation. You will also see that I had encountered that child in Turkey in Morocco; that man in Morocco in India; that scenery in India in Cuba; that detail in Cuba in Asia; that building in Asia in Europe. This book is the meeting place of all those encounters.

What I mean to convey with this book project is that one should love and live one’s moments which for me is almost synonymous with taking photographs. As in that cliché of one’s life running before one’s eyes as in moving frames of a film, to how many frames might those moments add up? Can one count them ever? How many of them can remain in memory? For me, to cast that moment in permanence and to find happiness by reaching for it again are the same as framing it.

As a businessman under an extremely heavy work load, my wish is to encourage others and show that one can still carve a certain “beauty” around one’s busy life. While enjoying each of its strands, photography occupies a special place in my effort to live a “whole” life made up of a bouquet of family, work, social responsibility and sports. What relaxes and fixes me in such concentration as to make me hold my breath and makes me forget everything else is that moment when I take that photograph. That place, that person, that building, that cloud, that mountain; whatever that is, with that moment, it forever becomes my own. For “my moments”, which I have dared to entrust to you between the covers of a book, a new life is ready to start now.

Copyright © 2009 Ömer Burhanoğlu