The China Mail - Turkey show displays photo master Ara Guler's Cannes shots

Frozen in time yet alive with glamour and spontaneity, these moments are part of a new exhibition in Istanbul featuring previously unseen shots by Turkey's legendary Magnum photographer Ara Guler at the Cannes Film Festival.

Dubbed the "Eye of Istanbul" by fans, Guler was famed for his iconic black-and-white images that captured the soul of the Turkish city.

He also regularly covered the world's top film festival on the French Riviera between 1957 and 1967.

"Beyond the award ceremonies and red carpets, Ara Guler also captured what unfolded behind the scenes: lavish parties, intimate gatherings and even a luncheon held in honour of Sophia Loren," said Cagla Sarac, the art advisor for Dogus Group, a leading business group that founded the Ara Guler Museum.

"The result is a remarkably complete portrait of the festival, revealing not just its glamour, but the full human story surrounding it," she told AFP.

His Cannes festival shots are on display until October 11 at the museum in Istanbul, opened in 2018, two months before his death on his 90th birthday.

Next to the museum, a team of experts continues to work meticulously on his vast archives, preserving the legacy of Turkey's photography master.

"There are countless remarkable photographs in his archive, and with every exhibition we hope to bring new frames to light," Sarac said.

- Passion for cinema-

Traces of Guler's lifelong devotion to cinema can even be found in his teenage diaries from the late 1940s and 1950s, according to Temel Yilmaz, conservator and archive researcher.

"In his high school diaries, we keep seeing the same line over and over again: 'I didn't go to school today,'" he said with a smile. "Because he had gone to the cinema instead".

In a wide-ranging career, he also photographed famous personalities including Salvador Dali, Alfred Hitchcock and Winston Churchill.

Born to an Armenian family in Istanbul, Guler attended an Armenian school there and began working as a photographer on Turkish newspaper Yeni Istanbul.

He got his first big international chance as a photographer in 1958 when US magazine Time-Life opened a Turkey office.

He then met the likes of photographers Marc Riboud and Henri Cartier-Bresson who signed him up to join the celebrated photo agency Magnum.

-'Genuine portaits'-

"He looked at everything through the lens of news value, always trying to document, always searching for a new story," recalled Alin Tasciyan, a film critic who has followed the Cannes Film Festival since 2002 and who knew Guler.

What stands out in his archive, Tasciyan told AFP, is his ability to see beyond the surface.

"When I look at the photographs, I see the moments Ara Guler captured -- sailors arriving on boats. He would walk through the streets and beaches of Cannes, observe what was happening."

For Guler, photography was about truth rather than spectacle, she said.

"He really photographed the spirit of the time, the spirit of the place. In this exhibition, I saw how much he could extract from a place I know so well," she said.

"I also saw his humour -- he was a very funny man. He would suddenly crack a joke at the most unexpected moment".

G.Fung--ThChM