Ali Beşikçi - Phantasm

My memory is not particularly good.

A couple of years ago I received some rolls of film in the mail that I had left at my photo lab some time ago. Everything was as I expected, except for one roll of medium format film. I had absolutely no memory of taking one of the photos on that roll while the rest was totally familiar. The more I looked at the photo, the more I got lost. I couldn’t understand where or when it was taken. It didn’t look like anything I’d shot before. The image is out of focus and blurred in only one corner where a man seems to be walking towards the camera and a woman follows him. Their clothes recall the ’50s, and their faces are unclear. The place looks like the entrance of a mansion and reminded me of a post-funeral scene, or maybe a wedding. Even though I continued looking at the image for months, I couldn’t figure out where it came from.

I was at war with my memory. Photography had turned against me. My efforts at capturing the situation had turned inside out, leaving me with confusion and ambiguity. A moment of clearness gave way to skepticism. Once again, I started reflecting on why I photograph and on the scenes and subjects that I get immersed in.

I often find myself attracted to the in-between situations in the landscape of isolation and detachment in society. There is something that fascinates me about how we handle those moments of daily purgatory. I don’t usually photograph people but when I do, I find myself in some ways looking for their “ghosts”. This time, they seem to have found me.