Fotoğraf okumaya karar verdiğimde kafamda hep “Kendimi ve yaşadığım çağı nasıl ifade edebilirim?” düşüncesi vardı. Bu yüzden belki de fotoğrafın en yalın ve sade şeklinden başladım: siyah-beyaz nü. Yaşım ilerledikçe, vizyonum zenginleştikçe fotoğrafın, “sanatsal” fotoğrafın, sadece siyah-beyazla kalmadığını, her insanın da aslında bir sanat eseri olduğunu fark ettim. Moda fotoğrafını seçmemin ve ilgi duymamın sebebi ise modanın ancak insanla var olabileceği ve insanın sanat eserine dönüşmesinde büyük bir rol oynaması. Modayı zihinsel bir durumun yansıması olarak görüyorum, adeta bilinçaltının bir ifadesi. Bu yüzden moda fotoğrafçılığının iki yüzü olduğunu düşünüyorum. Birinci yüz ilk bakışta ticari gözükse de, diğer yüzün ikinci benlik ve altıncı hissin ifadesi olduğuna inanıyorum.
When I decided to study photography, I was constantly thinking about how to best express myself and the era I’m living in. Maybe as a consequence of these thoughts, I started working with the simplest form of photography: nudes in black and white. As I got older and my vision expanded, I started to realize that “fine arts” photography was not only limited to black and white; every person was an art work in their own right. The reason I chose fashion photography was because “fashion” could only exist via the human and it played a large role in the human being transformed in to the art work. I see fashion like reflection of a state of mind, like an unconscious expression of soul, so I think there are two faces to fashion photography. Although it seems commercial at first glance, I see fashion as the expression of the sense of self and the sixth sense.
Selin Alemdar’ın bu yeni portfolyosu, Skin’den gerek görsel gerek içerik olarak çok farklı. Selin’in moda fotoğrafçısı kimliğinin öne çıktığı bu çalışmada, uzun zamandır gözlemlemiş bir sanatçının olanı değiştirme, olana ekleme güdüsü görülüyor. Selin’in belli ki yakından tanıdığı çevreler, durumlar, onun için bir araç haline geliyor ve modelle çevre arasında bir gerilim oluşuyor. Öncelik sanki herhangi bir tarafa verilmemiş, izleyicinin gözlerinin ordan oraya gezinmesi istenmiş. Selin, Skin’de süjesiyle yakın bir ilişki içerisindeydi ve kadınların kendini ifade etme biçimi olan dövmeyle ilgili gözlemlerini güçlü stüdyo fotoğraflarıyla izleyiciye iletiyordu. Bu fotoğraflarda ise biraz daha geride durup fotoğraftaki unsurların birbiriyle oynamasından zevk aldığını düşünüyorum. Görsel olarak da stüdyo fotoğrafları kadar olmasa da kompoze edilmiş olan tablolar, sanki tesadüflere yer veriyor ya da yer verildiğini düşündürterek izleyiciyi keyiflendiriyor, sokak fotoğrafı ile moda farkı arasındaki farkı-farksızlığı gösteriyor. – Merve Ünsal
Selin Alemdar’s new portfolio is quite dissimilar to Skin both in its content and visual language. Although Selin’s visual sensibility as a fashion photographer is much more obvious in this work, it is also possible to see the artist’s instinct to change and interfere with what she has been carefully observing. Environments that she knows well, situations, become tools with which she creates a tension using her models. The priority seems to be neither aspect; she’d like the viewer to look around in the picture without a center of gravity. In Skin, Selin was in a close relationship with her subjects and she communicated her observations on tattooing as a form of female expression in the form of the studio photograph. In these photographs, however, she seems to prefer to stand back and let the different elements of the image tease each other. The images are relatively less composed than the studio shots and seem to at least allow coincidences, demolishing the distinctions between street and fashion photography.- Merve Ünsal
Galeriyi görmek için fotoğrafa tıklayın.
To see the gallery click on the image.
Selin Alemdar
Kahvede geçen fotoğraflar A Magazine’de yayınlanmıştır. Styling: Pina Gandolfi.
İlgili bağlantılar:
For the sake of argument, how are these images any different to the fashion photography seen in ID, dazed&confused, TAR magazines? The focus is not the clothing, but surely selling a lifestyle. The lifestyle in question here does not exist. All these photographs show pretty, young women in relatively high end fashion and make up out of the social context they belong. To be fair, this is a legitimate way of beginning debate on way a 20-something pretty (presumably rich too) girl isn’t going into a kahve and okey with person she would only (probably) buy a simit off. This is localizing the images. However, from the text I suspect this was not what Alemdar had in mind. Rather than affirming Alemdar’s perception of fashion as a means of affirming “sense of self” I find these images to depict the opposite. There is no real ‘self’ involved; the models and clothing are fairytale. And at least the blunt harshness of white studio backgrounds are more honest than the exploitation of cute, local situations.
But hey, talk is cheap.
I don’t think the images here define themselves to be different than fashion photography seen in the magazines mentioned. Contemporary photography can be defined as a breakdown of the artificial boundaries between the different “genres”, be it fashion, photojournalism, fine arts or documentary.
Richard Avedon, for example, always defined his portrait works to be “fine arts” and his work as a fashion photographer to be his day job. Many critics and academics see that the two bodies of work are not as different as Avedon intended them to be and such delineations belong to the 60s when art photography was being established as something that could be put in museums.
On the other hand, the images are selling a lifestyle. They are pointing to a constructed persona. The gap between the text and the work is where the viewers’ opinions come in. The intention and the result might be different. I think the strength of this body of work is the precise, subtle criticism of the artificiality of the fashion image.
i think it’s unfair to look for a theoretical sublime in every image we come across. the truth of the matter is, these are gorgeous photos. some of them might be pretty similar to what we see in id or dazed(btw i don’t think so, these magazines have a habit of only featuring 10 year olds in balenciaga with no background whatsoever) but on a closer look, they bring together people that would never ever sit side by side and make them communicate with each other and for me that’s enough of an achievement.