Born in 1962 in Çanakkale, Emin Altan has been producing photographic projects since 1996. After a twenty-five–year career as a naval architect, he made a decisive shift and embarked on a long-term visual narrative. Beginning in 2012, during an extensive world tour, he sought traces of his childhood amid the remnants of collapsed civilizations, using photography as his primary means of exploration.
Altan gradually distanced himself from idealized representations of harmonious nature, instead tracing a path through the ruins of a deteriorating industrial civilization—one increasingly overtaken by the very forces of decay it once attempted to control.
In his work, Altan does not aim to document, describe, or instruct. Rather, he strives to evoke emotional resonance in the viewer. His photographs confront a form of dystopian fiction shaped by subjective perception and personal observation, deliberately departing from traditional documentary conventions. By bringing together images captured in diverse locations yet linked by shared visual and emotional traces, he encourages viewers to step beyond the comfort of observing the suffering of an imagined “other” and to establish a more personal, empathetic connection—one that invites reflection on their own lived experience.
Altan’s book Chaosmos, comprising photographs taken between 2012 and 2017, was published in 2018. His subsequent book, Chernobyl / Çernobil, featuring work produced between 2015 and 2020, was released in 2023.
Employing photography as a medium for self-expression, Altan continues to pursue long-term projects and remains actively engaged in photographing Istanbul.
