Turkey Cinemascope is a series of a hundred panoramic photographs, which came into being in last decade, and a source of this selection by the author. The famous director shows by means of them the less popular face of Turkey – spacious landscapes, winter cities, individual and group portraits. Nuri Bilge Ceylan started from photography and currently deals with it parallel to cinema. His latest works are available to see on the website www.nuribilgeceylan.com/photography/turkeycinemascope1.php?sid=1 where you can also order a collector’s album. In fact, there are tight connections between his works in both fields: how similar the sky is in Three Monkeys or the snow in Distant to those captured in the photographs. Ceylan experiments with the exposure time and the development of photographs, enhancing contrasts between the foreground and background and obtaining an intensive, almost tangible texture. It is also noticeable how long it took before pressing the shutter, how long he had to wait or search for such an original composition in the frame, how much the time of the year and day is revealed. What is admirable about his portraits is the thoroughness in demonstrating the experience of the presented people. What kind of approach to the world emerges from Ceylan’s photographs? This is a look of a distanced aesthete, an introverted melancholic – but full of tenderness and astonishment.

Jan Topolski