My name is Eren Baysal and I am a sophomore at Kinkaid High School in Houston, Texas. My parents are both Turkish, so I have my extended family residing there. I enjoy photography and have even won an award from the Third Floor Photo Contest.

My grandfather, Selim Baysal, was an engineer that built several bridges in the eastern part of Turkey, that was once part of the Silk Road. The modern bridges he built were to replace the 10th or 11th century bridges originally there. One of those bridges, Hasankeyf, is soon to be flooded by an modern dam being built.

Below is a link to a video in which I am talking about what kind of experience the whole project was for me and what I gained from it.

Download Video

What was done?

Below I have linked a packet that I prepared for all the student. In it I included an itinerary of what we would do, an basic outline of technical ideas in photography, a list of the rules for the contest, and a safety sheet. This was given to them before I met with them and they were also allowed to keep it afterwards so that they could study some of it. We first meet with the student in the morning at Midyat where we went over how this project was started, the packet itself, and talked through a more detailed version of the lesson plan all after we handed them each the cameras we got for them. Once that was finished we shot a bit in Midyat and then drove to Hasankeyf. We shot around the bridge and the town itself around there. Once that was finished, we all went to Mardin where the kids went home for the night. Early in the morning we once again meet up and walked all around the old district of Mardin while taking pictures. Once finished, everybody had relaxing lunch at a local, and very old, kebob restaurant. Right after lunch we went to the lounge in the hotel that I was staying at and got to work at selecting three images and uploading them to my computer. After many hard decisions, our journey was over and we parted ways with the students, but not before we collected all of their information so that they could also be informed on the results of the contest as well as set up an everyday connection with me.

Mardin Tasks

Much Thanks

I would like to thank Semra Eldem and Birsen Oztekin of Marev and Bulent Erdolu of the governors office of Mardin for helping us out while in Mardin, when trying to receive all of the pictures that were taken, when choosing judges, etc. I would also like to thank our judges for meticulously narrowing down the 33 photos that were submitted for the contest into just 3 with me. Film producer Baran Seyhan, architect Yusuf Sezer, and Marev board member Semra Eldem were the judges who helped choose the winning photos. Lastly, I would like to thank the sponsors for this project for their support. The Baysal, Kroger, Snoots, and Stephens family all contributed alongside the Kinkaid School.