My Photography Journey
In photography, there is an eternal boundary between documentary recording and artistic fiction. Sometimes you want to remain an honest observer, and other times, you want to step beyond reality to create an image that exists purely in your imagination.
Back in 2013, I captured night-time Istanbul. The low-angle shot by the Galata Tower turned out great – deep, expressive, and atmospheric.
I liked the frame, but looking at it, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it lacked scale. It needed something grand, something that would make you pause. So, I decided to experiment.
I combined three of my own photographs: the base shot of the Istanbul street, a separate close-up frame of the Moon, and a picture of a starry sky. Merging them into a single photomontage and converting the image into high-contrast black and white transformed the shot entirely.
The result exceeded my expectations – and triggered a wave of intense curiosity. Even though I clearly stated from the beginning that it was a collage, people kept writing in, insisting that “it’s physically impossible,” “the Moon can’t be that huge,” and “lenses don’t work that way.”
Of course, I understand optics and physics perfectly well: in real life, such a giant Moon over Istanbul is impossible. But the purpose of art isn’t always to blindly copy reality. Sometimes, the goal is to convey emotion, scale, and a sense of wonder. And if a composite forces people to stop, stare, and debate – then the idea fully succeeded.