"UNKNOWN BEAUTY"

Ibrahim Nejat Cifci

"UNKNOWN BEAUTY"

Ibrahim Nejat Cifci

Not only does the landscape change. Not only the activities change. At nightfall we change. Our perception

of environment is altered by lack of light, by the visibility, by darkness. We reach the limits of our capabilities

and we feel like we are carrying on in a world that is not our natural environment. When we enter into shadow,

into darkness, the sensation makes us feel vulnerable. We sense that we are lost in an environment that surpasses

us.

Night is time to withdraw; it is time for reflection, for intimacy like Plato's "two worlds"; The visible

world consists of things below the (main) line in the metaphor of divided line: 'physical objects and their

images, shadows and reflections' . The intelligible world consists of the things above the main line in the

metaphor of the divided line: 'images and forms'. I distinguish day time as the visible world, and night time as

the intelligible world.

A very romantic idea that tells us that not only we see exists, therefore photography could capture

something that had no real body, that was only a shadow, a reflection of reality.

Darkness with its solitudes and solution, is what makes all our real and unreal fears grow in the night. We

don't know what type of event but we are sure that something out of ordinary is going to happen. Night is not

only the counterpoint to day; it's also a metaphor. Night is darkness; it is mystery. There is always a hidden

secret, a secret that one only discovers by looking carefully and searching for clues like a clever detective.

I work by night or, more specifically, during the time of transition from daylight to night. With

photography, in colour, is much harsher and direct. It seeks the physical construction of some of the scenarios of

our ancestral fears, those that we only feel in the dark, when we are alone.

I think that there is equality of mystery and drama, and unknown things that can be portrayed and

suggested in the night. There is something about nighttime stories that just speak to me..