About Me

This photo was taken by a child who’s forced to work on streets, at red lights, cleaning car windows, and selling the driver’s stuff. I was talking to him, asking about the reason for him being there at night time. After answering my question, he pointed to my camera and asked permission if could take pictures of me. I put the camera on auto mode, handed him over, and instructed him about how he shot. He took the camera and asked me to sit on the sidewalk and look at him. I did as he asked. He took a couple of shots and this was one of the few focused ones. I did not photograph his face as he did not want to.

Mehmet İlbaysözü – 20.10.1976

Professional Photographer

I live in Turkey, in a city called Adana, located in the southern part of the country where the Mediterranean ends and the Middle East starts. I started photography back in 1995 when I was studying Business Administration in Istanbul. Since then, never stopped. In the beginning, as any enthusiast, I experimented the photography and shot lots of rolls, full of underexposed sunsets, everyday life, mosques, flowers, seagulls, homeless, etc. I have worked in many different jobs during my high-school and university years such as being a pizza delivery boy or mostly salesperson in many different sectors. After working as an accountant for a year, I quit my job and started doing photography professionally in 2003. I worked on cruise ships as a photographer and thanks to my job, I traveled six continents. In the meantime, I put my interest in documentary photography and started working more systematically, stating themes and building my work around them. Working as a cruise ship photographer in a multi-language, multi-cultural, multi-gender, and multi-belief environment and traveling overseas constantly, transformed my personality, belief, perspective, and values and I started seeing things much more differently than I did before. Shortly, I started becoming a new person and I believe that I will never stop changing until my journey is over.

I came back to Turkey in 2009 and found a transformed country as well as I did. I kept doing commercial photography in Adana to earn my life and besides, I never put my camera aside when off-duty. My city has been one of the major stops in the migration route from the Middle East to the western world. Syrian War has started in 2011 and the transformation of my city sped up its pace.

Since then, I keep documenting my childhood places, memories, old and changing faces of my city, the transforming architecture, in short, the rusty past, and so-called the shining future.

I opened six personal photo exhibitions, three in Turkey and three in France.

I graduated from Marmara University, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Business Administration. I also have an associate degree in photography from Anadolu University. I have completed my post-graduate degree in photography at Chukurova University, Communication Faculty, Communication Sciences and wrote my thesis on the subject of reality and the truth in the field of photography.

My portfolios along with the texts are being published in Atlas magazine.
I started writing down corner posts on photography for Kreaktivist magazine in 2023.

I speak, read, and write English enough for any professional business. I speak, read and write French at the beginner level and still studying it.

I’ve given lectures at Chukurova University, Faculty of Communication on Basic Photography and Press Photography between 2020 and 2022.

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