By Heidi Trautmann

Kadir Kaba is a photographer, not just a photographer, he is a researcher and lecturer in photography, an eminent authority with regard to history and the philosophy of photography.

He has published several books on the very beginning of photography in Cyprus. The present one contains photos from often individual family archives and private collections, or from Kadir Kaba’s own archive. These precious plates are the basis on which he describes the first beginnings of Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot photography, first steps with the most simple equipment, procedures we can hardly visualize today, but which show the inventiveness of passionate first photographers.

Kadir Kaba has done intensive research work on the first twelve photographers starting with Ahmet Sevki (born in Kyrenia in 1874) and his wife Ismet (born in Nicosia in 1884) to Mehmet Muhyi Said (born in Kyrenia in 1920), showing the development of understanding of composition and presentation of the object in front of the camera.

Kadir Kaba was born in Mora, Nicosia in 1947. He graduated from ITIA Ankara as accountant in 1971. In 1975 he took up photography as journalist in London and studied photography at Paddington College, School of Photography in London from 1978 -1981.

Over 30 years he has been working as professional photographer in London and Cyprus, and as gallery owner, curator, researcher and instructor in universities and private colleges.

He wrote articles on his research work of past and present developments in photography and undertook many efforts to promote the art and support modern approaches in the field of art photography. His book on the very first Turkish photographer, Ahmet and Ismet Şevki,  in English and Greek came out in 2007.

Always aware of the world around him, having developed in himself the high sensitivity of a precision lens, Kadir Kaba goes on experimenting, exhibiting and writing. He has the respect of his country and his fellow artists and was honoured in 1999 for his contribution to Turkish Cypriot Photography.  His modern and postmodern way of art photography and his drive to promote photography have made him a leading figure in this field.

The book – ISBN 978-9963-9159-3-4 is published by the Turkish Cypriot Artist and Writers Union with a grant from the Ministry of Education and Culture of the Republic of Cyprus, and available in all bookstores.