When Tuncay Çöteloğlu heard that Michael John Eldridge and Stephen Jeremy Maxwell Bray were launching their International photography exhibition, ‘Trees and Sky’, in Turkey she was astounded!
“It is my subject,” she exclaimed, “I was thinking of hosting an exhibition called ‘Trees and Clouds’.
Tuncay Çöteloğlu is one of Turkey’s treasures. Born the daughter of an Ottoman officer and personal friend of Mustafa Kemal, she has always been close to the arts.
She studied painting, and the piano, before these were fashionable in Turkey, but her passion since being a small girl is photography.
“There were no films when I started”, she explained to Stephen Bray, “My first images were made on glass plates”.
“Later I used film cameras. I always carry a camera with me even today I have one in my handbag.”
Tuncay indeed did have the small compact camera, which she purchased some twenty years ago, with her. She shot a few frames just to prove that she hasn’t lost her touch.
She still covers events as a news freelancer, and sometimes takes on commercial assignments. She is also an experienced curator having hosted over twenty exhibitions prior to moving to Selimiye, (Nr. Marmaris), sixteen years ago.
“I started working professionally during the 1960s”, she explained, “I had my own studio and processing lab back then.”
Tuncay Çöteloğlu is a past president of Istanbul Photography and Cinema Amateurs Club (IFSAK), which was founded in 1959. She was the sole female member back then and her name, which can be applied either to boys, or girls, (more frequently boys), sometimes caused confusion.
How could this tiny woman with a smiling face be the president of anything, people asked?
“At first we met in the reading rooms of mosques, there were twelve of us. Later, when I acquired my lab, we met there because I had room. But when the numbers grew then we had to find larger venues.”
“I chose photography because I like to pioneer new things”, Tuncay told Bray who had met with her to ask her advice about a test print he had made in preparation for for ‘Trees and Sky’.
“I have also been a hotel manager, the manager of a concrete manufacturing works, a sea captain, as well as a parent of course.”
“My first love is life, and my second photography.”
When she saw the test print, which measures 90 cms. across, Tuncay said, “It is beautiful. I like to photograph the sky and the trees in this way. Sometimes people don’t understand what I see when I point my camera at the clouds. But I see shapes like animals heads, and sometimes the skyline resembles the profile of Ataturk.”
“Look there’s the head of a wild-boar in your picture, right here!”
“You’re worrying unnecessarily”, said Tuncay.
“The print is beautiful”
Trees and Sky opens to private view on 28th May, when both Eldridge and Bray will be in attendance. Tuncay Çöteloğlu will be the guest of honour at the opening ceremony.
Eldridge is the former Director of Postgraduate Studies in Photography from Bournemouth College of Art and now lives in Italy. His images are taken within the Le Marche region of Italy. Bray was a psychotherapist, and is a naturalised Turk. His photographs feature the Lorima Peninsular of Turkey. More information about ‘Trees and Sky’ is available at: http://treesandsky.me and http://facebook.com/treesandsky.me
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