Reading Sociocultural Contexts through Photographs: A Case Study of Women Photographs, Taken in the Early Republic Period of İzmir

Abstract

The individuals reflect the socio-cultural, economic and political changes in their society with theirappearances, like a mirror. From the late Ottoman period, through the declaration of the Republic, severalmodernization steps have taken place in Turkish society. During that period, photography has taken a crucialrole in society, both as a profession and social innovation instrument, by being a representative of the societalchanges. Through that, regulations such as Dress Reform and Women’s Suffrage Code, and western fashionhave influenced women’s image and re-defined their roles in modern Turkish society. These reforms providedmore self-confıdence and freedom to modern Turkish women. By that, the way women express themselves viaphotographs has been changed. This study aims to analyze the socio-cultural contexts, from the perspective offive randomly selected women photographs from İpek Cabadak’s private collection, which is named“Photographs Entrusted to the Future”. As a research method, iconographic visual analysis has been conducted,by considering social, historical and cultural incidents at that era, with the guidance of İpek Cabadak. Visualanalysis of the selected photographs has been made based on some fashion clues, pre-iconographic data andhistorical facts from the early republic period. The analysis provides useful information about the roles and positions of Turkish women, their interactions and positionings among the society, in order to define the timeand place those photographs have been taken and links between socio-cultural incidents. According to thisstudy, photography can be considered a beneficial and efficient tool for visual analysis in historic socio-culturalstudies.