AHMET ERTUG

The elegant Librairie Galignani was the perfect setting for this great encounter that was Ahmet. An incredibly inspiring human being that has two of the qualities I most admire. The ability to enjoy life and a great sense of humour.

Magali Alcaide: First of all, I need to tell you how happy I am to finally meet you because I've been following your work for a long time. My favorite art of all is architecture, and I have a passion for photography so of course your work…

Ahmet Ertug: I am in the right place! It is very important for us to get the feedback, you know we do our work like a monk, we deliver our product and start a new one. The moment I finish one, that's the moment I start a new one, and it is very rare that I get the feedback.

So you start your new project straight away, you finish one and start the new one?

The next day!

You never take like a month off, where you stop taking pictures…

No! In case I get rusted! It is very complicated, if you do not practice continuously you start losing your reflexes. I work with cameras, I work with computers, so I have to be continuously touching this technology, otherwise you forget.

You say you work like a monk, do you do everything on your own?

Basically I am the "Maestro", I have an orchestra, but only during the last few years I have been collaborating with my photographic assistants. I have three or four great friends, my assistants, they are all photographers, and as I use a large format camera, it’s very heavy, and when it involves traveling in Europe I cannot manage by myself, so generally we go out three of us, that's my photographic team. Then, after the photography we have the scanning, because I work with films, and that is something I do also. Now in Istanbul I have invested in a great scanning lab of my own, drum scanners I brought from Germany… Everything related to film is closing down, the labs are closing down, scanners are finish, so we have all these things in our own studio which means I have to learn…

Every stage of the process.

Exactly.

I thought that you would have a whole team, because when I look at your photos, the lighting, the atmosphere, I would have thought that you worked with light artists…

I have incredible sets of lights from the film industry and also photographic lights, and depending of the character of each project I use them. Recently I am working with the existing lights of wherever I go. For instance, when I photography Opera Houses, you cannot illuminate with your own lights, you have to work with the ambient lights, the real moods of the Opera House, or in the Libraries you capture the existing lights. My most recent project is about the Commagene Kingdom, which survived until the year 200 BC and was based in the Anatolia region, well I am using the lights of the Gods now, 3000 meters hight, a very sacred light. I was amazed of the quality of the light, it is so pure!

There is always this very mystical atmosphere in your photography, are you as well a very mystical person or a religious person?

I look for the mystical values and I feel them. When I photograph I put myself in the place of its creators, if it's a temple I put myself in the place of the architects, then I can feel how he created that temple and I look through his eyes to that space, then you can go into the heart of the building, you can feel the heartbeat of that building.

First of all you are an architect, so that's what gives you this power that other photographers don't have.

There is a line, the building shows only its façade to you but all buildings have a heart, so the secret is to go beyond that line. I do it really for my own pleasure, my own intellectual upgrading, it is never a job for me.

That's why you never stop and don't need holidays.

I haven't had a holiday for the last twenty years. You have to enjoy your day life, holidays are for people who don't enjoy their day lives.

We can feel the passion that you have in each photography.

I'm very happy to hear that.

How do you choose the destination of your next project? You have had a lot of photographic interest in Turkey and the Byzantine culture, Japan, Iran.. What motivates you?

During the last ten years, when I take a project it lasts eighteen months, and then, at the end of it, I come to a new intellectual mood, and that mood or that level takes me to the next, higher level.

So it is a natural evolution.

Exactly, it's a natural flow, every project takes me to the next project. This mountain where the monuments I am photographing now are, I had been fascinated by it for the last ten years. Mount Nemrut was built by King Antiochus who was related to Alexander the Great and also to the Persian King, Darius, so the monument looks one side to Persia and the other side to the Hellenistic world, it's unbelievable! After I did the World of Operas, this was the same thing, it was like an opera stage, this amazing pic of the mount where he created his tomb and his modern civilization signs. So for me it was a big challenge to take this one, following the World of Operas, it is the same thing!

You have in all of these projects a spiritual experience…

He created this amazing Empire, this amazing tomb, and I put it in paper like he would like to see it so when I create this book, I am like one of his architects. It is an intellectual game.

When we look at your photographies, I don't know if we feel in the place of the person who built it, but we definitely feel completely alone in a very quiet place, wether it is a library, an opera house or a temple, we really feel completely alone inside this place and there even is a feeling of meditation…

This is exactly what I have achieved in this project. I've been there a few weeks ago, it's winter now, -5° C, nobody and it was like a zen temple, amazing, just the wind…

Now you must have of course any building of your choice opened up for you, but how did you manage to get all the necessary permissions to get into the most beautiful places in the world when nobody knew you?

Like a magician! That's why I invested the first ten, fifteen years of my publications in Istanbul, so that it was easier for me to have access to these places. After the built up of these series, I was more able to come to people in Europe. But to get permissions is very difficult. When we photographed inside the Vatican we spent three months trying, and in Paris with the Bank that actually came up as one of the most beautiful photographies of the "Domes" book, we had to go through top level connections, they said for security reasons it was impossible, so you have to convince them that it will be a great contribution and that, out of hundreds of domes, we selected theirs, and then they allowed us to.

And it is a great contribution because you make it last for a long time, I know you take very special care of the paper you use because you want your books to last for hundreds and hundreds of years.

I produce specially for these books and I don't buy any ready material, every item is produced for the book. We spent months testing different papers, we see the reactions, I leave them around… Every project is like starting a new one, and I love to launch them in Paris. I always think of these books in the windows of Galignani or at very prestigious Museums, you have to think of the end point also, we really create a special item. I always think of the pleasure it should give to the person who comes and see it, touches the book, and the first five pages, I must really hypnotize the reader.

Well you do!

The time I spend for these initial five pages takes longer than the book itself. It's like composing a musical piece. Images coming on the top of each other you have to be vey careful, you need to read well, they have to encourage you to open the next page. With the wrong composition of images they can kill each other, so it's a tough job, I'm still learning!

We are all always in a learning process!

Did you get to work as an architect or you never practiced?

I worked as an architect many years, I am now over sixty!

You don't look your age at all!

I am swimming five times a week. I used to do yoga, but now I am doing the yoga in swimming, meditative swimming. I have a pro coach that makes me do some serious swimming, but I do it at a very tranquil tempo so it regenerates my batteries. In creative business you must do meditation, tai chi or swimming, it is very important, you have to always keep your energy levels at peak, because we work ten or twelve hours a day and during the sleep we create also, we dedicate our lives to this.

So you are a monk!

Yes, I am a monk.

If you always work ten to twelve hours a day and you go from one project to the other, you only live to do this.

Yes, fortunately it's giving great pleasure, it's very innovative and I love it.

I always wondered if the artistic creation had to go through solitude or in the contrary had to make you be in contact with a lot of different people, different energies…

No, very tranquil, I have to limit my relations with people with who I only focus in subjects related to my work. If I am doing a book about the Hellenistic world I cannot look into another period. You have to travel to that time zone. When I photographed the sarcophagus of Alexander The Great, when I illuminate that incredible sculpture with the scenes of the war between the persians and the greeks, I look at it as an observer of that war scene and I create an illumination that looks like the sunrise hitting these warriors, it's like a movie, it's a story telling. The photography is a very static moment, but when you are looking at it I have to take you into deeper parts of it, which as you tell me I feel I have succeeded.

Absolutely, you have! When we see one of your photographs we are absolutely not passive, static and cold about it, we are completely thrown into it, I totally see why you use the time travel image.

Do you have a favorite period from all the ones that you "travelled" to?

I am fascinated by the period of the Commagene, there's not much written about it. You know many of the incredible archeological sites are in touristic zones, so somehow the energy is a bit lost but in this area, it is so isolated , it is amazing, you can feel this amazing hellenistic and roman aura, so I've been really impressed with this area and now I am living in that period!

And then when you come back to the present is it very disappointing, is it ugly, is it noisy?

I live in Istanbul, it's cosmopolitan, it's noisy, I love it! The contrast is good also, it brings you back to reality. The energy in Istanbul makes you very productive.

It's like a contrasted New York.

Yes, exactly. I travel using the boat so I don't go into traffic, so I'm observing the skyline of the city, I go to Byzantine monuments… it's got a great energy for me. To do intellectual work you had to live in an intellectual environment. My workspace is a listed building that I restored, it has a great energy so when I go in it's my temple. I have my photography exhibited, I have a gallery, lots of space dedicated to libraries.. it gives me great creative energy.

And you also have a lot of freedom, because you make everything, every part of the process and even editing your books.

Yes, I am in charge of the editing. Of course I work with highly qualified authors, mostly specialists of the subjects I treat, and we collaborate on the context, they complete their text but it is always related to the visual material. My partner in publication Ahmet Kocabiyik is an industrialist and he is also a patron of fine arts in Istanbul. Together we are founding members of a musical foundation, I am in the board of the philharmonic orchestra and we also recently opened a contemporary art museum in my partner's office. It's the first office-museum, I am also in the board, so he is pulling me into his activities as well and I try to contribute with my knowledge in his interests also. He gives me full freedom in our partnership, in the editorial and esthetic decisions which is great.

So you are into contemporary art as well.

Yes, I am a contemporary photographic artist and am very keen in following the work of my colleagues. I also follow much of the contemporary art through my partner's involvement, so it gives a certain dynamic touch to my work. If I look into an archeological subject I try to put a contemporary finish somewhere, maybe in the binding.. a touch.

With contemporary art, when I see or experience a piece I always ask myself is this going to last, will it be timeless, will we still love it in one or two hundred years, and you can capture that kind of essence with your photographies.

Whatever I want to do, it has to last, I always look in that aspect and that is my motto.