A. HALİM KULAKSIZ

A. Halim Kulaksız was born in 1944 in Selimiye village in Şiran, Gümüşhane (Black Sea Region of Turkey). In 1951 His first encounter with photography was when his grandfather İbrahim Celebci brought a photographer to their village and got a picture taken of him, Halim Kulaksız, and his four other brothers. In 1958 at Erzurum High School, he bought himself a bakelite camera and started his photograhy works at high school’s photography club.

In 1969 he started MEFO (Color Photography with Letter Correspondence) with his friend Akın Öktem. The same year he initiated REFO Color, the iconic central photography lab of Turkey. In 1971 he opened the first ever color photography exhibition in Ankara Zafer Bazaar under the name “Images”. The same year with an invitation of CIBA PhotoChemi A.G. he participated to a CIBAChrome training in Fribourg, Switzerland. In 1972, he opened his second exhibition “Images 2”. In 1972 he successfully completed New York Institute of Photography. In 1973, he won the second price in the “Our Turkey” photography contest organized by Ministry of Culture. In 1978, he became a lecturer at Akademi (later knows as Mimar Sinan Fine Art University) and paleyed an important role establishing the photography department at the university. In 1979, Sakura invited him to Japan to make researches on photography. He got introduced the first ever prototype minilab at Noritsu factory. In 1984, he was titled as the Artist of FIAP (AFIAP) by the International Federation of Photography. He opened his third exhibition “Images 3” in 1985 in Istanbul. Between the years 1988-1991 he published “REFO Photographic Art” Magazine. Since 1992 he has opened 7 more solo exhibitions and participated to numerous mix exhibitions. A. Halim Kulaksız served in many national and international photography juries, including FUJIFILM Press Awards. His photographs were displayed at many exhibitions and contests. He has won numerous prices and mansions at various contests and exhibitions national and international. And since 1996 he has been teaching at Marmara Fine Art University Photography Department.