We recently met with Tunç Üvendire who is a professional photographer and asked him about his work as an artist. Along with his wife Semra Yilmaz Üvendire, they have created Silk Road Shop (http://www.silkroad-shop.com/) which sells collected ethnic textiles, jewellery, artifacts and antique handicrafts collected from their travels on the ancient silk road from Turkey to China. Tunç is a many faceted artist, he is also a composer of children’s songs and is about to release his first CD.
He has a personal web site at http://followthecamera.com/ in which he discusses some of the philosophy of his art under the About Memenu.Dekor okno
Tunç was born in Istanbul but his family moved to several different cities because his father’s work as a banker took them to many places in Turkey; especially in the east and the north of the country. Tunç went to many different schools on the Anatolian or Asian part of Turkey.
Tunç returned to Istanbul to finish his high school at the Naval High School and then he was accepted into the Naval Academy for his university. Out of 27,000 candidates, only 140 were chosen. As an Academy caded he studied navigation, sailing, math, mechanical engineering and other subjects which were to prepare the cadets to become officers in the Turkish Navy. While there Tunç believes the first “treatment of his gem,” his artistry was formed. For while he was there he perceived things in a more geometric and structural way, discovering patterns and the start of his vision was formed there. Tunç decided to leave the Academy after three years there and therefore was not required to take the oat of a Naval officer.
He then went into advertising as a customer account director where he was responsible for planning adverts for customers using visual marketing techniques. These were very colorful years for him, the second phase of the “treatment of his gem” was formed here through his learned experiences about color, shine, brightness, clarity, crispness and his creativity became more developed. There was also a down side to his public relations training.
Now his training and research felt contradictory to his inner self. Tunç started to grow weary of the city, the life was hectic, social climbing was not in his thoughts and he decided to leave Istanbul. He asked himself, “do I want to make and spend money?” It seemed the only purpose there was to make money and then to turn around and spend it. This lifestyle did not satisfy him. He was looking to change his life. He wanted more time and could live with less money. He wanted less stress and to relieve himself of his self-centered feelings.
Tunç had first visited Kaş in the early 1980’s and found that the area had a “magnetic pull for lonely souls” and he fell in love with the “magic” of Kaş. In that time, the generator that ran electricity for Kaş was shut down at midnight. The resulting silence and candle light or darkness was stunning to him after being in the crowded and noisy city of Istanbul. The stars could be clearly seen from anywhere in Kaş.
He finally moved to Kaş in 1989 where he entered into the third phase of his “treatment of his gem”. The weight of his knowledge about life and his growing awareness of the universe, led him to start his journey to explore his identity, his self. His discovered spiritual side inspired him to travel. While he had been at the Academy, he read about many different religions and discovered the ideas of Sufism which transformed him.
Tunç thought that making a living with tourism would help his connection to the world. By living in Kaş he could meet people from many different cultures, like a “heart fed by many veins,” these encounters from the world outside Turkey led to new thoughts and visions for him. He found freedom in Kaş to explore his creative side with seven months of work in their Silk Road shop and five months of time to be free to explore. Their shop started with photo trips to many parts of the Eastern world, what he calls the “unconcerned” visions of humanity they found. He learned that those photos affected the objects they discovered, feelings generated by ancient arts and handicrafts. This eventually led to the start of Silk Road because they wanted to have a place to bring these objects to share with the outside world.
He started his serious photography work when he moved to Kaş. He felt he had an artistic side, sensitive to the outside world, exploring the outer world. His expressions through his photography changed over the years. He now takes photos of the “inside” world by seeing or being influenced by the feelings he receives from the outside. For example, a photo of a child is his childhood and he is moved and influenced by that moment. Tunç sees his inner self by the scenes he shoots. He is pulled to the photo from within. He believes he can take any photo this way because the universe is felt and becomes part of himself in a spiritual sensitivity. The form and deeper meaning of this sensitivity is expressed in his photos.
His evolution was from taking simply taking the external image in his photos, like a child learns to write letters and simple words. Later his inner self became more part of his photos much as an author uses complex words to describe images. His “words” are his photos. His photos to him are poetry with many words and deep meanings which lead to deeper spiritual meanings. His “language” is street art, dynamic color, graphic harmony and creativity. His web site states “My work can be called ‘Street Art Photography’ as it mostly flows into a creative and colourful dynamic feeling. Yet my professional work is artistically designed and the final outcome is meticulously achieved.”
As an example see the wall photo to the right which he called “Neighbors respect.” This photo is of the joining of two walls of a house in a Bursa village. What do the four colors mean? The seasons? Emotions? The texture of the walls give us the history of the house, the rough surface of the older house and the smoother surface of the newer. Tunç sees many layers of information buried in this photo.
He believes it is important for the photographer to understand what is felt when a photo is taken. The photo, the subject, the photographer and the viewer of the photo are connected by the event. All see themselves on the same level of perception. The “arrow” of the photographer goes through the subject of the photo straight to the heart of the viewer.
Now that his “gem” has been created sufficiently and polished, the light beam coming from it reflects colors depending on the cut of the “gem.” Tunç sees a photo as life; the negative of a photo is the “unseen” side of life brought into our vision by its development. Looking at a photo is like looking at a leaf undisturbed on the ground. We know the leaf has both a front and a back yet we only see the front, to understand the dimensions and depth of the leaf we have to see the other side as well. His photos have an “other” side as well. His photos are layered with the unseen side of life, they see the the other side. This way the subject “chooses” the photographer and the subject is also part of the essence of the photographer.
Tunç Üvendire
Uzuncarsi Gursoy Sokak no 4B
Kas Antalya 07580 Turkiye
Tel: +90 242 836 3980
Mobile +90 532 340 8362
Email : tunc (at) followthecamera.com
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