Perspective | Intense, poetic, immersive photos of Turkey in turmoil
Ozmen recounts this formative event in an essay at the end of his newly published book, “Olay” (Mack, 2024). He goes on to say:
“This traumatic event was the first ‘olay’ — ‘incident’ or ‘event’ — I experienced. The first I can remember. … On that day, my innocence vanished. It was as if I had to try to understand everything, to document all of it, to feel whatever it was to compensate for the helplessness and disbelief I felt that day.”
Fast-forward a few years and he began a life as a photojournalist, wrapped up in many more “olays.” At first, he worked for a newspaper in Turkey but then became disillusioned, “after witnessing the manipulation of information within the newspaper I was working for.”
Ozmen resigned from his position as a staffer and embarked on a journey of independence, working as a freelancer.
In the following years, Turkey would see an uncanny spate of cataclysmic events, from military operations to student protests, disrupted elections, earthquakes, forest fires, drought and finally an economic crisis.
Ozmen was right there in the thick of all of it, documenting it with real flair, sensitivity, urgency and empathy. This was his country in turmoil, after all, and, as a child, he had pledged to try to make sense of life in it.
“Olay” is filled with eloquently executed black-and-white photographs, interspersed with a few color ones. There is poetry and surrealism in them. They fit with the idea of a country experiencing waves of chaos and uncertainty.
We are thrust, inexorably, into the chaos Ozmen witnessed firsthand. He pushes us into the middle of what he is seeing. The book is a visceral documentation of the push and pull of chaotic event after chaotic event. It is, indeed, a monumental testimony to not just the rough and tumble in Turkey but, by extension, the very world we live in.
Maybe it has always been a tumbling, out-of-control world, but over the past few years, it has felt as though the “olays,” as Ozmen refers to them, keep coming at a faster and faster clip.
Here’s the thing: Ozmen isn’t fatalistic about any of this. As he says at the end of his essay in the book:
“Never a week without a drama, never a month without a major event. Here, nothing is simple, everything intermingles and clashes, the beautiful as well as the ugly, sadness as well as joy. Our hearts are heavy, tired, but the resistance prevents us from falling into total despair. We have not forgotten that not only torment but grace wanders around us.”
You can find out more about the book, and how to buy it, here.