«Αμαρ» στα αραβικά σημαίνει «φεγγάρι»

Amar Ömer Kılıç

Amar in arabic means moon! and as Amar Ömer Kılıç says «I do not think this is a coincidence. There is an indescribable relationship between me and Mardin. My childhood, my youth continued under this sky. I played in the shadow of clouds of the plain. I run out of breath in the streets of Mardin. I have been walking the path between the mosque and the church for centuries. I'm looking for my own story from shadows, fog, poems. I feed the streets, people and secrets of this city. I am 32 years old and this city has grown me».

Mardin is a beautiful city in southeastern Turkey, it is very famous for its exceptional architecture and for its strategic location on a hill near Tigris river. Mardin has often been considered an open-air museum due to its historical architecture. Most buildings use the beige colored limestone rock which has been mined for centuries in quarries around the area. The whole city has been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site under the "Mardin Cultural Landscape".

How did you get started in photography?

It would be more correct to say since the day I was born.Technically I started with compact machines at the age of 14.I got my first professional machine 24 years old.I did not receive any academic information related to photography. I was informed and tried to read.

What does photography means to you?

When I look at the world from the view of the camera, I have schizophrenia. The photo starts with the shutter. I see demolitions, weddings, exiled people, unexplainable stories on the streets from the camera's vision. I take cultural weddings, Syrian refugees, religious rituals, social rituals, people whose houses are destroyed, and the lives of the moments in the street. Sometimes I take the first steps to newborns. I do not take photos, Äą live with photo. I m thinking The photograph is story, the photographer is the story teller. Photos without memories are like deleted memories . It is an unforgettable experience for me to notice the change of the sunlight in the streets during the early periods when I started taking photographs in the streets of Mardin as the sunlight changes like a corner kite and from different angles. I love light games in these streets.