Photo and dialog by Advocate photographer Can Turkyilmaz:
“Last Thursday, I was photographing a private event at The Petroleum Club in downtown, 49th floor at the Chase Tower. Everybody in the room was amazed by the scenery outside, but they had to redirect their attention to the guest speaker, a retired high rank Navy official. He was talking about how an armed conflict with China and its allies was inevitable in the near future, due to to some economical and nuclear policies in the region… I thought, ‘The world as we know it is going to end soon; better make pretty pictures of it.’
“I love shooting against the sun. When I was little, my father used to say, ‘When taking pictures, make sure the sun is behind you.’ I didn’t listen to him then, and I do not listen to him now. Whenever I can, I try to use the sun as contour light or fill light. I love it when it is actually in the frame.
“First, I snapped a photo with my phone camera. Then, I thought of my friend, David Hauck, who gets so mad at me for doing that, so I grabbed one with a ‘real’ camera.”
