The Ship of Theseus

Is there a way to start a blog post with Greek mythology and not sound awfully pretentious? I don't know, but I love the question at the end of the story. You most probably know it anyway, so I'll make it very brief. After slaying the Minotaur in the Cretan labyrinth, Theseus escapes to Delos by ship, some 300 odd kilometers to the north. He arrives as a hero, because he's stopped the sacrificing of Athenian youth to King Minos of Crete. To commemorate Theseus's feat, the Athenians start an annual pilgrimage to Delos with his very ship. Over the years, wear and tear on the ship make maintenance work inevitable. Rotten planks have to be replaced by new ones. Observing this, there comes a time when Greek philosophers ask an interesting question: once every part of the ship has been replaced, is it still "the ship of Theseus"?

The never-ending rebuilding of Istanbul brings to my mind Theseus's ship. As in "is it still my Istanbul?". But thinking this over now, maybe the proper (Greek) analogy would be "you can't swim in the same river twice". Anyhow, during the pandemic this building was on my walking route and I loved the single window in the facade. Did the owner of that flat just say "The hell with my neighbours and regulations. I'm gonna knock down the wall here and open a window!"? A couple of months after I made the first photo a gaping void replaced the window, signaling what was going to come next. Shortly after, as expected, the whole thing went down. Now a new building is there. Its shape is remarkably similar to its predecessor's. So far, it's a white facade, sans window. That might come later!

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All three of these photos were made with a Bronica RF645 and the 65mm/f4 lens. They are printed on 24x30cm Ilford Classic FB paper.

The first two frames are on Tmax100 film and were developed in Tmax (1+9) at 24 degrees Celsius. The last frame is from a few weeks ago and is on the new Kentmere 100, which I developed in home-mixed D76. This is my first ever roll of Kentmere 100 and it looks all right. I probably should reduce the development time a bit though; the negs look a bit contrasty.

The Game

I've long thought of writing about the zines I and four other photographers published over the course of 5-6 years, but wasn't quite sure where and how to start, because there are many aspects to it. I didn't want to force it, so I let it linger. And now, whilst on holiday, sitting in a strong breeze, from a fairly high vantage point watching the Mediterranean waves crash onto the shore, the content of this post started to form in my mind and I pulled out the laptop. Here it goes...

It is called "Gözaltı", which literally translates to "under-the-eye". It also means "being under surveillance" and "being in custody"; plenty of subtext there. Self-publishing the zine had quite a few pain points, one of them being coughing up the 100 Euros per photographer. 500 Euros, that was roughly the cost of 2000 zines, each 16x24cm in size, with 32 pages. 100 Euros per photographer, every 6 months, for a zine we give away for free, without expecting anything in return. It doesn't sound too much, but it was a problem that came up in our discussions quite often. Why throw good money out of the window? We talked about trying to find a sponsor and what not, but eventually continued to cover all costs from our own pockets.

Anyway, the moment we were done with the edit and design of our fifth issue and had to collect the money, one of our photographers decided he'd had enough and pulled out. Obviously, you can't blame anyone on money problems; everybody has their own circumstances after all. So, with four remaining in the group, we had the challenge of completely redesigning the issue, and the question of whether we would continue as four people or whether we should look for another photographer. In the end, an excellent photographer whose style we thought would enrich the zine, and who, as a person, would also be a good fit to the group, accepted to join. And indeed, with her contribution of pictures and her help in the edit, I think issue 5 turned out really well.

I should very briefly summarize the concept of the zine. We aimed to publish an issue every 6 months. Beforehand, we decided on a theme, usually a simple word. For example, the theme for issue 5 was "Game". Then we have about 4 months to produce photos that fit the theme. In the last 2 months we try to finalize the edit, the sequencing, the interior design, the cover design and the printing. Once printed, the cycle begins again. And in the meantime, we also deal with distribution of the printed zine, another can of worms.

The editing & sequencing was always the highlight for me. Because here we would all gather in a suitable space, with all pictures laser printed in small format which would be easy to pin up on a board, and we would all talk about the photographs. It was extremely enriching to hear everyone's opinion on each picture and why this and that sequence would or would not work (which could be an entire new post). This was our final edit, but there were many other candidates prior to this.

A social media presence, especially on Instagram, is also a must for visibility. So, after publication, we prepared all sorts of "content".

With the camera it's a bit goofy and I slightly cringe when I see it now. But I did take the photo with that camera and lens. I was on a conference trip to Barcelona and only took the plain-prism F2 with an old pre-AI 35mm/f2.8 Nikkor with me. You can also see the front cover and get an idea about the size of the zine.

This is another one of my pics. It still fits the theme, but has a lot of sadness in it as well. We used it as the closing photo. The first and last photo, and the two-page spreads always had somewhat more importance and I could often sense some hard-supressed rivalry for those spots :)

Here are a few short notes about the above photos:

1. A spontaneous scene in Istanbul. I had a Pentax 645Nii with its standard 75mm/f2.8 lens with me. This camera is a workhorse but somehow I can't fully bond with it. I could say it's a close friendship but not a love affair. I'm not exactly sure why, but the way it extends towards the front, especially with anything but the 75mm, must have something to do with it. The film was Tmax400.

2. A playground in Adana in southern Turkey. Made with a Leica M6 and 35mm/f2 ASPH Summicron. My standard companion for 20+ years. The film was Ilford FP4.

3. Barcelona, as I already mentioned. The film was Tmax400.

4. A zoo. The camera was a Nikon F4 (which I hate) and the 45mm/f2.8 pancake (which I love). The film was Ilford Delta 100. The fine detail on that 30x40cm print I find quite remarkable.

Quite a motley of cameras...that can't be a good sign.

I had two more photos in that issue which I've not included in this post.