“Innocent”: A Photography Exhibition in London by Ümit Bektaş
Award-winning photographer Ümit Bektaş shared his reflections during an evening discussion held after the opening of his “Innocent / Masum” exhibition at the Day-Mer Cultural Centre in London. The exhibition unfolds as a meditation on childhood, vulnerability, and the limits of seeing. Rather than functioning as a chronological account of conflicts, migrations, and disasters, it brings together images that insist on duration. These photographs ask to be looked at slowly, demanding attention not through spectacle, but through quiet insistence.
The photographs in the exhibition make visible the children who are so often lost in numbers, restoring to them their faces and their stories. In the eyes of the children who look directly into the camera, one sees fear, astonishment, exhaustion—and, above all, a plea to “see me.” This sustained eye contact collapses the distance between subject and viewer, activating the photograph as a reciprocal gaze rather than a one-sided observation.
One of the most moving moments of the discussion came when Bektaş spoke about the famous photograph of Yunus, taken during the Van Earthquake, which resonated around the world. He described rushing to the region as soon as he heard the news. In Erciş, he noticed a crowd gathered around a pile of rubble. Looking through his telephoto lens, he encountered a gaze he would never forget:
“He had opened his big eyes wide, waiting to be rescued. He was bewildered, frightened, but watching everything around him with hope.”
Yunus had been found wedged in the doorway of an internet café when the earthquake struck. Bektaş followed the rescue operation from beginning to end, and he said he could never forget what he heard as Yunus was being placed into the ambulance:
“I’m late. My mom is going to be angry…”
The news of Yunus’s death became one of the most difficult moments of his career.
“Years have passed, but I remember Yunus every time there’s an earthquake.”
Bektaş reflected on his early belief that photography might change the world. He admitted that he once held on to this hope, but over the years, it has faded. “Even if photographs can’t change the world, I like to think they empower those who want to,” he said. Yet he also acknowledged that this belief was deeply shaken after the Maraş earthquake:
“I used to imagine that someone who saw Yunus’s photo—a contractor, for instance—would never skimp on materials, or that a municipality wouldn’t approve a dangerous building. After the Maraş earthquake, I lost that hope.”
He also spoke about the challenges faced by journalists working in Palestine and Gaza, noting that information from the region has been almost completely shut off:
“Many foreign journalists cannot enter Gaza. Much of what happens there never reaches the outside world. That creates a heavy silence—one that obscures the true scale of the war.”
According to Bektaş, complete neutrality is impossible for any journalist:
“Everyone has a worldview. What matters is not letting your feelings or opinions slip into the frame. Even two journalists in the same newsroom may stand on different sides. You have to find balance.”
He summarised his journalistic principle simply: “To convey the truth without bending, twisting, or concealing it. I cannot stop wars, and I cannot prevent the earth from shaking, but I can show people what happens when those responsible fail to act.”
Bektaş, who began his career shooting on analog film, reflected on how the cameras everyone now carries have transformed news photography:
“Images circulate within seconds. That speed informs people, but it also turns suffering into something quickly consumed.”
Even so, he says he is glad to be working with digital equipment today. From the days when war painters imagined battle scenes to today’s world of rapidly shifting realities, Bektaş remains clear:
“Photography is a vital tool for documenting reality, but every image carries the perspective of the person who takes it. What you include in the frame, what you leave out… all of it is interpretation.”
Responding to the long-standing ethical debate sparked by Kevin Carter’s famous photograph from Sudan, Bektaş spoke drawing on years of experience:
“Sometimes you want to help, but you know the moment must be recorded. Just witnessing… it’s one of the heaviest burdens of this profession.”
He explained how he navigates that burden:
“If someone else is there to help, I capture the moment. If no one is, I step in.”
This ethical tension remains visible in the images through distance, angle, and the photographer’s position in relation to the subject.
With this, Bektaş lays bare—simply and honestly—how he draws the line between witnessing and intervening.
He closed the discussion by reflecting on the relationship that photography forms with its viewers:
“I may not be able to change the world, but I record what I see. The rest is up to you.”
With these words, he invites viewers not only to witness what the photograph reveals, but also to take responsibility for their own way of seeing.
