Born in Çukurova in 1928

If I’d been educated I could have been President

In some corners of Nicosia time has stood still. So it is with a tiny little shop in one of the backstreets of Old Nicosia not far from the Selemiye Mosque, in the Idadi Sokak where the first several stories high modern apartment building was erected in Nicosia by an Armenian architect in the 1950-60s; yes, there, and on the door panel it says Photo Şık, the writing has never been changed for 58 years. When you come at the right time, that is around 11 o’clock every single day except Saturday and Sunday, you will find Mehmet Şık in his shop and usually his blue bicycle outside.

I had met Mehmet Şık at the painting exhibition of Canan Cürcani,  daughter of his old colleague’s Ümit Esinler,  and we talked and I expressed my regrets that I had never met him before. We arranged a meeting at his old shop and our mutual friend Nazıf Bozatlı agreed to join us to help translating along with his knowledge of Cypriot history.

And there he stood waiting for us, Mehmet Şık, as he must have stood there in the doorframe of his shop for many decades greeting his clients who came to have their photographs taken. Mehmet Şık, an old gentleman with a twinkle in his blue eyes, who was seen on his bike with a big bag attached to it with all he needed in it, day in and out for many decades. A legend.

“I come here every day, I am still paying rent, although I do no longer any business; I need to smell the atmosphere of my small kingdom, I just sit here, surrounded by the four walls which carry the same photos for the many years since my retirement in 1998, I have not changed anything, time has stood still for me, I don’t want to change it.”

Mehmet Şık, he gave himself the name, a sort of pen name, when he opened the first photo shop in 1952; it means Chic = Şık. Mehmet Şık, a selfmade man, a legendary figure in the scene, a man who has witnessed history and the lives of others from their birth to their death often, the occasion photographed by him and kept as a copy in one of his many albums. Mehmet Şık, the archivar, collector, who has collected so many things, things with a value, perhaps historical, such as pins, club pins, honour pins stamps, coins, lighters…..

For me an image of another level of time, a theatre stage one enters. Some chairs have to be freed from memories  for us to sit on, all pressed into a tiny room of perhaps 4 sqm, the walls filled with photos up to the ceiling, photos stacked on the floor along the walls, and shelves overloaded with collections and memories. Behind a curtain the workrooms filled with studio lamps and decorative sets for portraits and in the back the darkroom with enlarger and everything. Fascinating! A museum of photography!

Mehmet was born in the vastness of the Mesaoria, in Kuru Manastır today Çukurova, at the feet of the Beşparmak mountain, the five-finger mountain around which we find so many legends and from where comes the water which made the area so famous for its mills and its riches. It is in this area around Değirmenlik, one of the old city kingdoms, that his parents came from; his grandfather had a rich reservoir of water and could grow anything on his land, also vegetables, even cotton and he had hundreds of beehives. His parents were also farmers and continued the tradition to live from the land and had sheep and goats and cattle, were breeding ploughing oxen especially. They had seven children, five boys and two girls. One of them was Mehmet.

“When I got home from school, I had to tend the goats and sheep, there was no time or patience on my side to work for school, I just fell asleep and there was not enough light anyway to do the homework.

“So, Mehmet graduated from primary school and his life was to be the life of a farmer. This did not satisfy him at all. “Whenever I came back from tending the animals I passed the coffee shop and Yusuf, the owner kept on telling me to learn a proper trade.” Constant dripping wears the stone and ideas formed in the head of Mehmet. “At the age of 12 years I ran away to Nicosia. On the way there I slept at a relative’s house and the next day a Greek bus driver took me on board and thus I came to Nicosia; I got off in the centre of town, you know where the parking area is next to the Selemiye Mosque, that used to be the camels’ rest place. I had been to Nicosia twice before with my father so I knew the place a little.”

I can vividly imagine the atmosphere reigning in those days; 1940….still wartime, conditions  very poor, long distance transport still done by camels although there was already a train running from Famagusta to the copper mines in the west. The Cypriots did not travel much, there was no time and no money.

“In our village a travelling vendor had organized a job for me in Nicosia, at a fabric store,  the owner was Reşat Dedezade; it was near today’s Lokmacı on the Greek side. So I looked for the place after I had arrived in the old city and he took me on as an apprentice and offered me a sleeping place and food to eat. I had to clean the shop and do errands. But this was not what I had in mind for my future and one day, that was about five months later,  I packed my belongings and placed it under the stairs to leave the place after work. But the owner found out and asked me sharply what I thought I was doing; I answered that I wanted to go back home and that my grandfather would come and meet me here, that was a lie but a miracle happened, when we opened the shop door, there he stood, my grandfather, who had been looking for me to take me home.”

So, young Mehmet went home again and worked for his family. Nothing much happened in the village, a village of about 150 inhabitants; the camels came through the village and rested there, and there was a yearly fair taking place, for Mehmet the only connection to the outside world; he was very anxious to do something and again Yusuf, the coffee shop owner dropped the words into his ears to learn a trade; his cousin was an apprentice at a printing house and he organized for him a job at a shoemaker’s in Nicosia. So he started all over again, doing work for a sleeping place in return, hardly any food and occasionally two shillings pressed into his hands. “On weekends I often travelled home by train which was cheap and got my weekly ration of food from home, eggs, milk and bread. I wasn’t happy at that place and when the shoemaker’s helpers didn’t stop making fun of me and pushing me around and beating me, I left and looked for another job. I was lucky, my next boss was a Greek and he paid me a regular salary, 21 shillings a week; after nine months I got two Cypriot Pounds! That enabled me to spend some money on an occasional film at the cinema; I loved Tarzan with Johnny Weissmüller and cowboy films with all the famous actors riding in freedom….”

It makes me smile, did we not all, after WWII dream of a life of adventure and freedom to do what we wanted. But for that we needed money, also Mehmet.

“I was about 14 or 15 years old and I had some thinking to do, what is to become of me. The shoemaking was not my ideal, besides the fact that the quality of the shoes was poor. I started looking around again and came across Photo Diana, the owner was Mustafa Bey. He had his shop near Işbank, you know, not far from Ledra Street. However, it meant to live on 2 shillings per week again. But here I was learning a job that interested me, and soon I did all the darkroom work, developing, enlarging, copying and cutting; but I needed more money for my upkeep. I had seen a Greek boy selling postcards and that gave me the idea to approach the bookshop Kemal Üsal who imported postcards with famous actors and actresses from Turkey and mostly America; so I bought some and made copies of them; those I sold at the entrance of the cinemas.”

Where were the cinemas in your days, I asked. “It was the Beliğ Paşa and the Licudi behind the Korkut Hamam. People were mad about these postcards and I had them all.” Mehmet shows me an album full of star photos and he explains…. “here is Ayhan Işık, the king of Turkish cinema, or Muhterem Nur, Esraf Koçak and so on,….and from America the acting crème de la crème  Dorothy Lamar, Tyrone Power and Anna Magnani, even Romy Schneider and many more.  Here is Ronald Reagan, who later became President of the USA…and I thought what this man can I can also do…”

Mehmet Şık became an entrepreneur, approached Bozkurt Printing House and made an agreement with the owner, had notes and lyrics printed and sold those as well. Thus he saved some money because he had but one only wish that was to buy a camera, his own camera. When he had enough money he bought himself a Unica Matic for films with just eight shots, a Brazilian make.

 “I looked for another job and found one with a Greek Photo Shop by the name of Smart; it belonged to Bedros, an Armenian; he was a smart man; in summer he opened another shop in the Trodoos mountains but only for the summer when many tourists came and we took pictures wherever we encountered tourists and sold them to them; it was good business.”

Having the mind of a good entrepreneur in the period of 1949-1950 he became an independent photographer, first a mobile photographer; he went everywhere, worked for newspapers, for all kind of festivities.

“When we celebrated bayram and people went to visit holy places such as Kirklar Tekke east of Nicosia or Hala Sultan Mosque near Larnaka Airport, I took my camera and went by bus to the places where I took photos of the visitors; returning home I made copies and sold them to the people who came and collected them.  I am sure he had given them business cards with his talent as entrepreneur.

Time went by with electrifying speed and full of actions and it was in 1952 that he opened his first shop already under the name ŞIK in the building of the LTL - Lefkosa Turkish Lycee - that houses the Ministry of Tourism, Environment and Culture today.

How was his private life in those days I was asking. “I still continued to go and see my family in the village and on my way back I was loaded with goodies from the countryside. I still remember one day when I returned to Nicosia by train that my basket fell off the train, it was so heavy, and as I did not want to lose it I jumped after it, poor me; I hurt myself and there was nowhere I could turn to, so I had to stay there overnight and wait for the train in the morning which I boarded then again to continue my way.” These were the things that could happen in those days and one encountered them with much more patience.

In the meantime Mehmet Şık had grown into a charming young man, good looking and looking after himself properly and I can imagine that he was the heartthrob of many young women. “Yes, that was so, but I was careful and didn’t risk anything.” He does not say more to this topic. (He got married in 1972 and has two children, one daughter, computer engineer, today at the court as head of the office, and one son, architect, responsible for expertise and project approval at the Antiquity Department.)

How many photo shops or famous photographers were known at the time we are speaking of, I asked. I know of the very first Turkish Cypriot one in the late 19^th century and his wife, Ahmet Ismet Şevki; Kadir Kaba wrote the biography about them.

“There was first of all Fevzi Akarsu, a famous photographer,  I have a photo of my parents he took in 1938, then Photo Diana and Photo Smart as I told you, and later came Ümit Esinler.

In 1954 Mehmet opened the new photo shop, the same place we are sitting in,  him, Nazıf Bozatlı and myself, and I am fascinated to hear about the old times; for Mehmet there is no time barrier, I think he still lives partly in those days, he remembers all so well and since he has not changed anything, it is for Nazıf and me the door to another time period, still intact with all the decorations. In the years that followed Mehmet expanded his photographer’s business; people came to his studio, had their portraits taken, there were faithful clients such as Rauf Denktaş and Dr. Küçük; I have friends who had their wedding photos taken at his studio …. ‘One did go to Mehmet Şık and had one’s wedding photo taken’  …, and later after 1960 when the Republic was founded, the soldiers of the Turkish and Greek contingent came to him, they often queued in front of his shop. These soldiers, later also the UN soldiers of different nationalities came to him for a souvenir photo.

“In those days I improved my technique; for the soldier photos I developed a sort of stage set, Cyprus the island, a two piece painted installation, to take apart and place the person in-between. Feridun Işıman, the painter, helped me realize it with the slogan ‘War for Peace’, I delivered the drawing of my idea and he realized it; he also did other things for me.”

I spoke to Feridun whom I know quite well. He was delighted to tell me about that time. It must have been 1979-1980, he was 29 years old. His brother in law had a dry cleaning shop opposite Mehmet Şık’s shop. So Feridun and Mehmet  met and eventually Feridun showed him how to use colour at his black and white photos.  I have seen the photos where Mehmet used pastel to colour the photos; that is all so long ago! Feridun had already graduated from university and was teaching at Güzelyurt Kurtuluş Lyceé. Mehmet’s idea for studio sets such as the map of the island of Cyprus was the first one in Cyprus. Mehmet was very successful with it. He still talks to him occasionally on the phone. He is very dear to him, Feridun said, and he is one of the first important Turkish Cypriot photographers. I remember the time when famous actors and actresses came to have their portraits taken.

Mehmet continued: “I developed special card frames for occasions such as weddings and souvenirs. A very special idea of mine was a Western costume including rifle and pistol for young people to impress their beloved ones and costumes for children, because Western films were the thing then. John Wayne films.

I asked him whether he ever had an exhibition. “Oh yes, in 1991 at the Atatürk Cultural Centre together with Altay Sayil with old traditional photos.”

I look at this man Mehmet Şık who has given a lifetime to the development of photography. How does he see modern photography today?

“We old photographers have  studied the object, the person in front of us, have studied the face, the life in the eyes with our heart and our experienced eyes and not with the computer, with everything automatic inside the camera, we experimented with light and design for all our life, we had a sort of pride in our work.”

Mehmet Şık plays lottery every week and should he win one day he will then buy the place, his shop for 58 years, and make a museum out of it, because studios of this kind no longer exist.  He was a man who educated himself, who went through many stages in his life and has seen things nobody else has seen through the lens of his camera, magnified.

His conclusive words when we said goodbye followed me for many days and made me smile:  “You know, had I been educated, I could have been President…”

(There are more pictures on my website)