Rahmizâde Bâhâeddin Bediz

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Rahmizade Bahaeddin Bediz

Rahmizâde Bahaeddin (or Bahaeddin Bediz after the 1934 Law on Family Names in Turkey) was a Cretan Turk who is generally agreed by historians to be the first Turkish photographer by profession. He started his career in Hanya, Crete in 1895, and went on to open photography studios in İzmir in 1910, in İstanbul in 1915 where he acquired his fame, and in Ankara after 1935 where, aside from his private business, he worked as the Chief of Photography Department in Turkish Historical Society. The thousands of photographs (especially portraits) he took have immense historical value. He is still revered also in Crete for having been the first to capture the people and the landscapes of the island. [1]