Ziya Volkan Çolak.
Documentary & street photography. Ankara, since 1978.
I was born in Ankara in 1978. I studied civil engineering at Eskişehir Osmangazi University, and somewhere between the lecture halls I picked up my father's Yashica Electro 35 — the camera that began everything. Decades and fifty-eight countries later, the question that camera asked is still the same: what does it mean to look at a stranger long enough to recognise them.
Photography for me is documentary and street, working at the 50mm full-frame equivalent — the focal length that matches how I actually see. Fuji X100VI and X-T5 for most work; Sony A7R II when the weight earns its place; older Sigma Foveons when the light is kind and time is generous.
I shoot because a stranger's face, lit badly by a market bulb, has more to say than any caption I could write. The camera stays small. The attention stays long.
Approach
Human-focused. Long journeys. Markets, sidewalks, rituals, train rides — the ordinary world when nobody is performing. I work slowly, return often, and trust the second visit more than the first. A photograph is rarely the picture I expected to take; it is the one that revealed itself once I stopped looking for it.
I don't share what doesn't move me. As I told Fujiwalk in a 2020 interview: "I do not publish a single photograph that does not make me feel something or that lacks sincerity."
Influences
Photographers: Henri Cartier-Bresson for the geometry of the decisive moment, Josef Koudelka for the weight of silence, Nikos Economopoulos for the Mediterranean grain, Sebastião Salgado for moral seriousness, Fan Ho for light as composition, Vivian Maier for unsentimental tenderness, Ara Güler for showing me Istanbul before I knew I was looking, and Abbas for the dignity of distance.
Filmmakers: Andrei Tarkovsky, Wim Wenders, Abbas Kiarostami, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Stanley Kubrick, Wong Kar-Wai. Books: Cartier-Bresson — The Decisive Moment; Susan Sontag — On Photography.
Recognition
- "Photographer Friend of India" — selected by the Embassy of India, Ankara (2018).
- Member, FSK — Photographic Arts Society of Turkey.
- Member, TFF — Türkiye Fotoğraf Federasyonu (Turkish Photography Federation).
- Member, FIAP — Fédération Internationale de l'Art Photographique.
Selected Exhibitions & Talks
- India Through Turkish Eyes — Embassy of India, Ankara (2018). Held in partnership with the Photographic Arts Society of Turkey for the 150th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
- Rajasthan — An Indian Tale — exhibition.
- From Black and White to Color: A Journey from Eskişehir to the World — exhibition.
- Photography presentation & talk — EFSAD (Eskişehir Photographic Arts Association), Özdilek Art Centre (8 November 2019).
Current Gear
Fujifilm X100VI · X-T5 · X-Pro2 · Sony A7R II · Sigma SD1 Merrill / DP2M · iPhone.
Get in touch
For prints, assignments, and long conversations: volkan@volkancolak.com · Instagram @vlk_clk.