By Umit Bektas

Turkey’s fledgling peace process with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group is all over the headlines. After three decades of war, 40,000 deaths and a devastating impact on the local economy, everybody seems ready for peace. TV news channels and newspapers are saturated with opinions and commentary from politicians, officials, academics and journalists on what appears to be the best hope yet of building a lasting peace agreement with Kurdish militants.

But what about ordinary people in Turkey’s southeast, those most directly affected? How do they view the peace process and how might their lives change?

Eager to find out, I traveled to southeastern Turkey to cover Newroz, the Kurdish New Year celebrations, on March 21. In the town of Cizre, near the border with Syria, with the help of a local journalist, I found the Savun family and spent the weekend with them. Theirs is not an extraordinary story, but sometimes the least extraordinary stories reveal the most.

This is the story of the Savun family:

Mehmet Emin Savrun, 36, lives with his wife Hayriye, 35, and eight children in a small three-room house in Cizre. He relies on an old TV set to find the latest news about the peace process. He has two succinct comments on a plan being pursued by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and the PKK‘s jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan, who called for a ceasefire on Newroz: “Peace is good,” he says. “Fighting is a sin.”

Mehmet Emin has had no schooling. When a school was first opened in his village, the teacher looked at how tall he was and rejected him from the class, deciding he was obviously too old to attend with the younger children. Mehmet Emin had no legal identity document to show his age. “The teacher’s name was Mustafa. I will never forgive him,” he says. Learning to speak Turkish and rudimentary literacy only came when he was doing his compulsory military service at the age of 20.

Life in his home village of Akcay on the edge of Mount Gabar was disrupted when the conflict began. His father refused to become a state-paid village guard to fight against the PKK. Forced to evacuate their village, the family moved to Cizre when he was eleven. He has lived here ever since, grown up and married. He did his best never to become involved in the conflict.

But events have left deep marks on his life. His children’s names reflect the course of the conflict. His only daughter Leyla is named after Leyla Zana, a Kurdish politician who was still serving a long jail term when she was born. Influenced by a peace initiative in 2009, he named one son Baris (meaning peace in Turkish) and another Botan, the Kurdish name for the region around his village and Cizre.

In search of money to look after his family, Mehmet Emin traveled to cities including Kayseri, Alanya in Turkey and Erbil in northern Iraq to work as a construction laborer. None turned out to be permanent and he always returned to Cizre. These days, he sells tomatoes and cucumbers in a small hand cart with his 16-year-old son Kadir. He usually makes about 20 Turkish Lira a day but on lucky days he can make 50 – the equivalent of 22 U.S. dollars. “50 lira is good money,” he says.

Five of his eight children go to school and Mehmet Emin is determined to keep them there as long as he can afford to. Leyla, Ferhat, Osman, Mehmet, Zeki and Abdurrahman attend the primary school near their home. Ferhat is 11 and his teacher says he is bright but a bit unruly. He has signed up for two hours of elective Kurdish language classes a week, a new opportunity which some 200 students in Cizre have taken up. They have a Kurdish-speaking teacher, something unthinkable in the past when the Kurdish language was officially banned, although Ferhat says he would not have missed much if he had not taken this course as he already speaks Kurdish. “I also know the letters”, he says.

“What Kurds need is to have their education conducted in Kurdish. And take all courses in their mother tongue,” said another Kurdish-speaking teacher in Cizre.

The streets in Cizre, a town of 100,000 people, are bustling in the daytime, but quiet at night. They ring to the sound of thousands of people like Mehmet Emin Savrun and his son Kadir, all trying to earn their livelihood. The nights are generally quiet, despite the occasional blast of a percussion bomb and sirens.

Ferhat borrows my camera to take pictures of the bustling streets. As he snaps the statue of Atatürk in the town square, he comments in a very matter-of-fact manner: “ They’ve bombed it again but it hasn’t fallen down.” I realize then the reason for the blast that woke me from my sleep in my hotel bed the night before.

Cizre, Mehmet Emin, Ferhat and millions like them are anxious for peace. They hope that peace will bolster economic development. Mehmet Emin has a short definition for the peace process: “Can anyone who does not want peace be human?”

It was the latest in a series of deployments in the region
in recent weeks. There is no indication that Turkish forces will
cross the border, and the troop movements may be strictly
precautionary in the face of spiralling violence in Syria.

Two separate convoys of about 30 vehicles left a base in
Gaziantep province to head south to Kilis and were now stationed
along a fenced-off section on the border with Syria, witnesses
said.

“This is part of a training exercise,” said a high-ranking
officer in a second convoy of nine vehicles with armoured
personnel carriers, tanks and other military vehicles.

A second officer in the same convoy said the troops would
remain on the Turkish side of the border.

The state-run Anatolian news agency said ammunition and
military vehicles were brought by rail to the town of Islahiye
in Gaziantep from the Mediterranean port of Iskenderun.

In a fourth troop movement, military vehicles, including
tanks, were moved to Akcakale in Sanliurfa province, further
east from Kilis and Gaziantep, and were now stationed at the
Syrian border, Anatolian said.

Turkey, a member of NATO, has conducted in recent months a
number of troop deployments along its 911-km (566 mile) border
with Syria, which is in the throes of an insurgency seeking to
topple President Bashar al-Assad.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, a former Assad ally, is now
among his most vocal critics, calling for him to step down from
power amid the 16-month uprising that has killed thousands of
Syrian civilians.

Tensions between the neighbours hit a peak on June 22, when
Syrian forces shot down a Turkish military reconnaissance
aircraft, killing two pilots.

Kilis houses a major refugee centre for Syrians fleeing the
violence at home. About 44,000 refugees are in Turkey.

Erdogan last week warned the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK),
an armed militant group that has launched attacks inside Turkey,
against setting up camps inside northern Syria.

That area, which has a large Kurdish population, has been
spared much of the violence seen elsewhere in Syria, but Turkey
is worried the PKK could exert influence there amid a power
vacuum and threaten Turkish security at the border.

The PKK has waged a 27-year campaign for autonomy in
Turkey’s largely Kurdish southeast, and more than 40,000 people,
mainly Kurds have died in the conflict.

I have always wondered how athletes, who must exert incredible amounts of energy in whichever sports discipline they compete in, handle the issue of nutrition. As the London Olympics approached us, we Reuters photographers began to make our photo stories. I decided to create a photography project stemming from this curiosity of mine. I planned to interview some of the Turkish athletes preparing to compete in the Games and take pictures of what they ate. Sometimes you think a project that sounds good will also be easy to carry out and this is very exciting but when you actually become involved that euphoria is replaced by anxiety. This is exactly what happened to me.

SLIDESHOW: AN OLYMPIC DIET

The hardest part was to persuade the athletes to spare a few hours in the studio which meant taking a break from their exercise program. I wanted to take photos of six athletes but I was rejected by at least three times that number of other athletes. Some said they were training abroad, or in other cities. For others, their trainers rejected my request saying their charges would “lose their concentration”.

I had to get permission from the sports federation involved, then from the coaches or trainers of the athletes I wanted to photograph and finally from the athlete themselves.

I chose my six athletes and conducted interviews with them. I asked them how they solved the issue of nutrition and made a list of all that they ate during a day.

Field photographers like us are not involved much with studio photography so before the actual shoot, I asked a friend to act as a stand-in for the athletes and took some trial photos. If you are taking pictures for a cookery book, you can make all the digital photo adjustments you want later on your computer. As a field photographer I, of course, knew the rules of news photography I had to adhere to during post production therefore this step of running tests beforehand was important for me. It did indeed prove to be very useful and I believe the final results were all technically satisfactory.

For the test pictures I brought to the studio a table and some crockery which I thought would look nice. But on the day of the shoot, I realized that the most difficult thing was setting the table and arranging all the food on it. The first thing I did was to shop for the food on the list that each athlete had told me during the interview. For cooked dishes I had to visit several different restaurants. I bought soup from one, steak from another and rushed these to the studio. Then I set the table as best as I could. All but one of the six athletes were from outside Ankara and were not familiar with the city. So, I had to go to their hotels and bring them to the studio as well.

I must admit that I practiced a few small tricks to ensure that my pictures turned out well and the table looked nice. For example I put raw salmon in the dish on the table so its color would look brighter, on items of food that I thought looked too dull, I poured plenty of olive oil to make them glossier. I did not cook the pasta through but just put it in hot water. I had to scold the athletes not to pinch from the plates of appetizers so they would not look half-eaten in the photos. But some arrived hungry so I bought them pizzas.

After the shoot with the food I asked the athletes to pose in typical gestures or positions of their particular sports. This was easy and also fun.

The hardest part of the assignment was at the very end of the shoot. I packed up my cameras and put on an apron to wash the dishes. If I ever have to work on a similar project in the future, I will first make sure there is a dishwasher in the studio!

“I may have become an elite athlete with my good
performances but I can only be a great athlete if I can win an
Olympic medal,” he says.

Turkey is taking a team of 85 athletes to the 2012 London
Games, a record number for the nation, and dozens of young
sportsmen and women around the country are now busily training
for the Olympics, much like Avan.

The 23-year-old complements his rigorous training schedule
with a nutritional programme which gives him a daily intake of
3,500 calories – mostly derived from protein.

“A good diet is essential for power. A correct and
consistent diet proves its value in my training,” he says.

Taekwondo fighter Bahri Tanrikulu is a three-times world
champion, and an Olympic silver medallist. The 32-year-old has
his heart set on a gold medal at the London Olympics.

He supplements his 3,000-calorie daily diet with legal
ergogenic – or performance enhancing – aids and multivitamins.

A firm believer in the merits of permissible ergogenics,
Tanrikulu says: “If I did not take these supplements I would
have to eat several kilos of meat, and dozens of pieces of fruit
to meet my daily protein and vitamin requirement.

“If I had to obtain the calories my body needs through
natural foods, I would have to spend all my time eating instead
of training.”

Nur Tatar is also preparing to compete for Turkey in the
London Games. This is her first Olympic event in taekwondo
fighting and she is on a strict diet to shed several pounds to
reach the exact weight category in which she will fight.

She has reduced her daily calorie intake to 1,500 calories.

World champion weightlifter Mete Binay fuels up on 3,500 a
day. He drinks at least two glasses of milk a day, and his diet
is largely composed of red meat.

Binay consumes plenty of sweet desserts every day and takes
care never to miss a full breakfast. The weightlifter is also
keen on organic food.

Shortly before competition, he starts supplementing his diet
with ergogenic aids and vitamin pills.

Wrestler Elif Jale Yesilirmak adheres to a 3,000
calories-a-day diet.

“Instead of red meat, I generally eat salmon,” she said. “I
believe fish is more healthy and nutritional. And also, lots of
water. I drink a minimum of five litres of water every day.”

Merve Aydn is an 800-metre athlete who will run at the
Olympics for the first time. Her daily intake is 3,000 calories.
Although she is rigorously training for the Games, she remains
guarded on the outcome.

“It is more important for me to realise my true potential
and limitations. And do the best I can. I work hard and keep a
careful diet,” she says.

(Editing by Ossian Shine)

Only a half hour’s walk from the hundreds of tents lined up in the camp would take them to the banks of the Orontes River, the natural boundary between Turkey and Syria. When they cross the river they would be back in the land where they were born and grew up, among the people speaking the same language – their homeland. From the border it is only a short journey to their town or village and their own homes. Yes, the distance is short but what keeps children away from their homes is not always distance. Sometimes it is politics and the conflicts born of politics. And it is precisely this strife that forces the children to live a life in tents in bleak territory. There are reasons behind all conflicts, they have their antagonists, those in the right and those in the wrong, the strong and the weak. Who is right and who is wrong may change according to everyone’s way of thinking but there can be no doubt that the most innocent and the most vulnerable victims of all conflicts are the children.

A small number of the millions of displaced children who have fled fighting around the world are the Syrian children who have found refuge at the Boynuyogun refugee camp in Turkey’s southern Antakya province. Hundreds of them now live with their families in the identical tents pitched in the camp. The Turkish administrators of the camp provide food, clothing, shelter and medical care for the refugees. An important part of life which these children miss now that they are away from home is of course their schools. Because no one can predict how long they will have to stay in this camp, Arabic-speaking Turkish teachers have been assigned to conduct classes for them. These teachers have grouped the children into age groups and teach them in tents, turned into makeshift classrooms.

Certainly the education Syrian children receive here is inadequate compared to their regular schools but it is obviously a much better alternative to idleness and at least helps further their learning. New camps are under construction in the same region and school buildings are part of their planned infrastructure, evidence of the importance attached to the continued schooling of these children.

I was at Boynuyogun Camp for the first time in the summer of 2011. My latest trip there was in recent weeks. The one hour I was allowed to take pictures told me I had to use this time well. So I decided even before I entered the camp that I would observe and document only the children. When my paperwork was approved and I entered the camp through gates guarded by Turkish soldiers, I made my way straight for the tents used as schoolrooms. It was noon and teachers had sent the students to join their families for lunch. I heard children’s voices coming from only one tent and when I peeked inside I saw some children drawing. I introduced myself to the teacher and asked what they were drawing. The teacher said he had asked the children to make a picture of “My Dream House”. It was not only the teacher who wondered what the house of their dreams would be like. I did and I’m sure you would to. What was the dream house for these children who now lived in a single-space tent?

When they finished their drawings each child showed them to me and I photographed them. They had all drawn different houses but most of them stood under a bright sun. In defiance of the bare concrete of the camp site they now lived in, some had adorned their drawings with plenty of flowers and trees. Possibly their dream house was the one they had left behind in Syria. I could not converse with the children but I was still aware of what the drawings told me: A tent is not a home. No matter how long you may stay there, you can never belong to a camp. Everyone comes from a city, a small town, a village but above all, we all belong in a house.

Syrian children climbing the colorful slides in the camp’s playground could stand on the top of the steps and see the border villages on the Syrian side and even a far away town. Perhaps some of them came from those villages and that town. In their young minds they were probably wondering why they were so far away from their homes when they were in fact so near. And on their small drawing pads they drew pictures of their dream homes. Most likely their pictures showed us their own homes in the yards and gardens of which they were until so recently running free.

Perhaps this is their way of telling us these homes are not a dream but reality.

The government wants to overturn a 1997 law imposed with the backing of the military which extended compulsory education from five to eight years, but also stopped under-15s attending religious “imam hatip” schools.

That led to a sharp decrease in the numbers at the schools which were originally set up to train Muslim clerics. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and nearly half his cabinet attended imam hatip schools.

The main secular opposition People’s Republican Party (CHP) agrees on the need for education reform, but says Erdogan is seeking revenge for the 1997 law and attempting to bring about his stated desire to raise a “religious youth”.

A 2010 World Bank study showed only 16 percent of 15-year-olds in Turkey attend schools with average reading, maths or science test scores comparable to or above an OECD average.

Relying on its large parliamentary majority, Erdogan’s AK party is to introduce the education bill to the assembly later on Tuesday and plans to complete voting on it by Friday, or if that is not possible keep parliament open over the weekend until it is passed.

In response, the CHP decided to hold its weekly meeting of parliamentary deputies in an Ankara public square, the first time this has happened in the history of the republic since it was formed in 1923. The AK Party called it unconstitutional.

“The people and the CHP are claiming their rights in this national struggle,” CHP deputy leader Erdogan Toprak told reporters at the square, accusing the AK Party’ of bulldozing the bill through the committee stage where it packed the room so that no one from the opposition could get in.

“According to what constitution can you pass 19 articles in 20 minutes?” Toprak asked. “Despite all our efforts in the committee, neither were our contributions accepted, nor was any tolerance shown.”

DYNAMITE

Faced with government efforts to rush it through parliament, Toprak said the CHP would do its best to hold up the bill, calling it “dynamite planted under the Turkish youth”.

While the AK Party has won three elections since 2002 and remains popular, there is a large minority of urbanised Turks who are wary of its roots in political Islam and suspect it has plans to overturn, piece-by-piece, the secular republic.

At least 5,000 people filled Ankara’s Tandogan Square, waving Turkish flags and carrying placards against the “4+4+4″ education bill, so-called because it extends compulsory education to 12 years – four years primary, four years middle school, followed by four years of secondary school or vocational training.

Imam hatip schools would count as vocational training, allowing a boost to the numbers attending.

“4+4+4+Erdogan = 0,” read one of the banners.

“I am a child of the republic. I am thinking of the future of my grandchildren,” said 55-year-old Naciye Sahin. “This law will open the way to more headscarves and imam hatip schools. We don’t want to be a part of that. We are children of the republic and we want to stay that way.”

(Additional reporting by Tulay Karadeniz; Writing by Jon Hemming; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

As the medical staff rushed to prepare the seriously wounded soldier for immediate surgery, I stood in one corner of the emergency room wondering how publishable the pictures I would take of this bloody and violent scene would be and what would be the benefit of it, if they were indeed published.

No photo of the soldier who lay there covered in blood and unconscious would ever be sufficient to express his agonizing pain. There was no way I could ever sum up the earlier life of this solider, the life which would never be the same again. I could never explain why this happened to him. I could never relay in a single frame what really happened to him and what purpose his injuries would serve. For some time I watched the medical staff working frantically around the soldier, making superhuman efforts to keep him alive. Their efforts would probably save a life. What would mine accomplish? What would I have achieved if in the middle of this bloody scene I succeeded in taking a photo appropriate to be printed in newspapers and people thousands of miles away would bring into their homes to look at. What photo or photos would ever help the soldier to regain his limbs which would likely be severed very soon. I happened to catch a glimpse of the soldier’s boots lying on the floor. As the soldier was wheeled into surgery after emergency first aid, and the commotion in the room died down, I approached the bloodied boots and snapped them.

It is now more than a month since I returned from my assignment as an embedded photographer with the U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Now, as I write this blog I am looking at that picture. I want to talk about what a pair of blood-soaked boots means to me; as a human being and as a photographer.

For a month I reported with photos from a number of different assignments the American troops were engaged in. But I admit the days I spent with the 628th Forward Surgical Team were the most trying. It is not only the issue of seeking a meaning and an outcome in what I witnessed that still occupies my mind – it is a problem of the essence of the whole thing.

Let me explain what I mean by essence. The premises where three patients can simultaneously receive emergency treatment is in fact a tent. Unavoidably, it is cramped and the space left after three gurneys are placed side by side, is barely enough for the medical teams to squeeze in. If you are a photographer allowed to take pictures, obviously you cannot move an inch. Not because anyone has prohibited you, but to avoid hampering the medical staff, you take care not to change your position unless you absolutely need to. From where you stand you can clearly see what is happening but most of what you see cannot be photographed, cannot be transmitted if photographed and cannot be published if transmitted. It is bodies bloodied and mangled.

As a result it becomes extremely difficult to convey the drama unfolding right before your eyes. The photo you should take must be vital enough to relay the gravity of the situation and it must also be bearable. While striving to achieve this balance I discovered two things: Hands and faces. I thought I would take photos of the hands of the wounded.

Hands clenched in pain, a hand seeking another hand to hold on to, hands covered in blood pressing down on open wounds and hands too heavy for the exhausted bodies to hold up. And I took photos of the faces of the staff striving to keep those soldiers alive and their expressions. I focused on their expressions shaped by the drama which you will never see but which they lived and experienced.

Let me now talk about the meaning. Like everyone, I have my personal outlook on life and my own political stance. I am confident that I always set aside my political beliefs when I am taking pictures. Impartiality and observance of ethical values are my main concerns. But the right to live, to enjoy this fundamental right and to enjoy a life of peace is the privilege of every human being. It is unacceptable that any person should lose his body, his most valuable asset, and his right to life especially by dangers that can be avoided. No American soldier in Iraq or in Afghanistan, no African dictator, no child, no old woman should be deprived of the right to live or be threatened with its loss by someone else’s weapons, bombs, or someone else’s power. If a person is to be punished for what he or she has done, the punishment should not be death. Will the photographs I took in that tent in Afghanistan communicate this message? Well, it depends on how you look at the pictures.

Personally, I believe my photography does carry this message. If you read them correctly, you will be able to say this: “My hands should never be bloodied as in those photos, no one’s boots should become so blood-soaked, no one should lie surrounded by medical teams trying to give him back a life almost swept away by weapons with unknown purpose, no one should suffer this pain.” To me, news photography is the unadulterated and stark reflection of reality. But what you make of that reality is yours to decide.

For a week, every injured soldier carried into that cramped tent helped me realize again the value and the significance of life. There, I came to know doctors whose responsibility to the patients ended after their situation stabilized and they were transferred out, but who still continued to monitor their healing process even after the patients were flown home to the U.S.

I thought: We should all feel the same concern as those doctors. I dreamed that there were people who saw one of my pictures in the newspaper or on the Internet and wondered what became of that injured soldier, wondered what he or she can do individually to prevent such incidents. People ready to make an effort to prevent all this – good people!

And I hoped that they would not only look at my photos but try to read a meaning into them.

When I was informed of the date from which I was to be embedded with a U.S. military unit in Afghanistan, I luckily had enough time to prepare. I felt I had to plan everything before I left so I drew up a “to do” list. A major item on the list was the packing of my bags.

I knew I should carefully plan what I was to take. I knew I should travel light but at the same time have everything I would need on hand. Given the nature of the assignment and the conditions in Afghanistan, it would probably be impossible to secure anything I may have left behind. Fearing that my own list may be lacking some essentials, I contacted Kabul-based Ahmad Masood and other Reuters photographers who had been embedded before me. Masood, most likely the recipient of many such queries before, promptly sent back a comprehensive document he had prepared with a list of what I needed to take with me as well as other useful information. Along with other details from colleagues, I then knew exactly what I needed to take with me.

The first priority was the security equipment – body armor and helmet. Without them in your number one bag, you can not be embedded. So I put these two items in a separate bag.

The second bag contained all the equipment I would need to take photos and transmit. I was going to need two cameras but to be on the safe side, I took a third. As I was planning to do a multimedia piece as well, I packed an audio-recorder and GoPro Camera too. Also a Bgan to give me the internet access necessary to transmit my photos and the Thuraya to ensure communication at all events. As I placed my laptop in its bag, I thought “what if it breaks down” and added a nine-inch backup laptop too. Also packed was one spare battery for each piece of equipment that ran on them. For my cameras though, I took two spares each. As I would not be able to carry large lenses, I packed a converter, chargers, cables, memory cards, cleaning kits and adapters. All this filled up my largest bag.

As I was packing I noticed my mini-tripod. “Should I, or shouldn’t I?” It looked like the most trivial of all the equipment I needed to take on such an assignment. I was undecided. It was frustrating being torn between the idea of traveling light and the idea of taking along a mini-tripod. Finally, not wanting to be haunted by doubts by leaving it behind, I pushed it into the bag which was already growing too heavy.

Later in Afghanistan, during a night patrol in Logar province, I was really glad I did bring it along. The sky that night was as bright and full of stars as I had ever seen it before. The soldiers were chatting around a campfire. Smiling, I pulled out the tripod from my bag, set up the correct angle and set the camera for a 30 second exposure. The tripod had proved its worth.

My bag was filled with essential outdoor equipment as I would spend most of my time outdoors. Sleeping bag, thermal wear, camel bag, bvac, headlight, gloves etc. All this left little room for my own clothes. But I didn’t mind not taking them along as much as I would have minded leaving some of my equipment behind.

When I was unpacking after returning from Afghanistan recently, I realized there was not a single piece of equipment I had not used, or had carried to Afghanistan unnecessarily.

Was there really nothing I forgot to take along? Sure there was – a towel. Luckily, that was available in Kabul.

At 13:41pm on Sunday, October 23 an earthquake measuring 7.2 magnitude hit the eastern Turkish province of Van. Minutes after the quake struck, first reports heralded large numbers of collapsed buildings with many people trapped under the debris. The first available flight to Van was on Monday so I decided to fly to Erzurum instead and from there take a four-hour drive to Van. When I arrived at Ercis, the town which had taken the brunt of the quake, it was just past midnight.

It was difficult in the dark to form a clear picture of the disaster and decide what to look for. I began to walk around the town. I photographed rescue workers making efforts to pluck people from under the rubble, but I could not spend more than a few minutes at each spot as I still had to get an overall picture. I had decided to look around for 45 minutes at the most before starting to transmit my first pictures. That was my plan until I came upon that one collapsed building.

A large crowd had gathered around a big pile of rubble on a small side street. There were many rescuers and a distinctive hum was rising from the crowd. Frantic work was going on around the building which had totally collapsed and was now level with the ground. I came closer. A person shouted, “There is someone alive!” They were trying to bring out a person whose dark hair I could see. I began to take pictures. Then I moved to the other side to try and get a different angle. And then I saw Yunus’s face for the first time.

In the following days Turkish newspapers carried Yunus’s story extensively. That is how I learned he was the 13 year-old-son of a family with nine children. No one in his family was hurt and the quake had not even seriously damaged their house. The building which collapsed over Yunus housed an Internet cafe and Yunus was there early on a Sunday morning to browse the net and check his Facebook account. The newspapers later went through his Facebook account.

When I moved to the opposite side and he raised his eyes and looked straight at me, I had my zoom lens trained on his face. He certainly wasn’t aware of it but at that moment there was nothing and no one between him and my camera. It was as if the two of us were alone, like two people chatting intimately. His eyes were wide open and he seemed calmer than all the rest of us outside the rubble. He never cried. As he was carried to the ambulance, he reportedly said, “I’m late for home. Dad will be mad at me.”

Someone’s hand was resting on Yunus’s shoulder. At first I thought it was the hand of a rescuer who was trying to comfort him but when I looked closer I realized that it was the hand of another man who was crushed under the collapsed building. Someone said it was his father’s hand, then it was said it wasn’t. Papers later reported the hand belonged to a married adult because it wore a wedding ring. This was all they could learn of that victim. I could not tell if Yunus was aware of the hand resting on his shoulder but my worry during the time it took to bring him out was that if he turned his head that way and saw the hand, it would scare him. I never worried that he would die, because I was very sure he wouldn’t.

He had been given a pillow. One of the rescue workers had pushed the pillow under his head so he could rest on it. It was apparent he felt better when he rested his head against the pillow but I found that pillow somewhat disturbing. Maybe because when Yunus craned his neck and looked around him, it showed that he was hanging on to life. The rescuers dug and dug for a long time. I thought of the person to whom the dead hand belonged. I looked around to see if there was anyone who knew Yunus. And I kept looking at him with great attention. I was acutely aware of him and he was totally unaware of me. An hour went by. Finally they pulled him out and I gave a sigh of relief. Yunus was saved. As he was carried to an ambulance on his way to the hospital, I took my last pictures and slipped out of the crowd to find a quiet place where I could set up my computer and transmit my pictures.

I had begun to take my first photos in the early hours of October 24. As day broke the gravity of the destruction Ercis had suffered became painfully apparent. The worst destruction of the quake was here. TV were transmitting their coverage from the region but they were also showing one photo. This was the picture of Yunus with the dead hand on his shoulder. I continued to take pictures until night fell.

On the morning of October 25 almost all of the nationwide newspapers featured big pictures of Yunus on their front page. Messages on my mobile phone, entries on my Twitter account and many other messages congratulated me on the impact of the photo and gave me the latest news of Yunus. He had died! His heart gave out while he was in the ambulance and regrettably he could not be resuscitated. Everyone extended to me their condolences, as if I was a member of Yunus’ family.

When I take pictures, I feel as if I am disassociated from the chaos around. This is one way of concentrating on your job but it is also a reality that your concentration can give you. Your camera is a shield behind which you take cover. It will not break your link to reality but instead gives you a space where you can receive the reality. Another effect of this solitude is the interaction you can experience with your subject. This interaction is generally one way and is generally directed at you. In a brief moment of time you may not feel this interaction but it is easily recognizable through long durations. A bond is formed between you and your subject. This tie is difficult to understand and/or describe, but contains so much, including responsibility toward your subject, human emotions and professional concerns. That is why those individuals who saw Yunus’s photo felt the need to express their condolences to me because they probably felt this bond between the photographer and his subject. They felt I was a part of the story. I did not object. I was sad. I was sad for Yunus whom I photographed as he was hanging on to life, as well as for the 601 people who died in the quake.