Photojournalist Selahattin İnanç opens exhibition

Photojournalist Selahattin İnanç, who has depicted every corner of Turkey in his photographs, has had to end his 23-year-long career due to health problems but is waiting for the day to see the world through the viewfinder again. 

İnanç started his career in 1976 but had to lay down his camera in 1999 due to glaucoma, which resulted in the complete loss of vision in one eye. 

Calling his love of taking photographs “my first marriage,” İnanç is now displaying his photographs in an exhibition at the Anadolu Ajansı Sanat Galerisi. 

Seventy-three photographs including those of ballet and nature taken all over Turkey are on display.

The proceeds of the exhibition will be used for a fourth operation on his eye.

Noting that he established the press sector's first photograph lab and took a picture of Ataturk's mausoleum from a zeppelin, İnanç said: “I was myopic and wore such thick glasses that people doubted my ability to take photographs. Some later apologized after seeing my images.”

Archive of 30,000 photographs:

İnanç said he has taken about 30,000 photographs throughout his career and that 1,000 of them were of nature and ballet, which relaxes him. 

“I continued to take photographs after I lost the sight in one eye, but I had to finally give up when I started to have problems with my other eye. Now I take photographs with my brain. If I can see again, I will convey these images in my brain to photographs.”

“I still look after my camera even though I am not taking photographs. I take care of it as if it were my child because I believe we'll soon be together,” he added.

The exhibition will run until Jan. 10, reported the Anatolia news agency.