Dilla Djalil-Daniel: The Istanbuli Silversmith

Photo © Dilla Djalil-Daniel-All Rights Reserved


Photo © Dilla Djalil-Daniel-All Rights Reserved


Photo © Dilla Djalil-Daniel-All Rights Reserved


Dilla Djalil-Daniel is a photographer currently living in Jakarta, and attended the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Istanbul.

She participated in Andrea Bruce's class, and chose me to review one of her portfolios of the Cap Go Meh celebration in Singkawang, West Kalimantan. Naturally, this captured my undivided attention on account of her colorful images of the unusual rituals and trances.

Dilla traveled around the world for her photography, especially in Asia and has a large portfolio that ought to be shown on her own personal website, which I urged her to have.

Her project in Istanbul for Andrea's class was documenting a day in the life of a traditional silversmith in Istanbul's Grand Bazaar whose name, Kennedy, is definitely nontraditional. It seems his parents named him after the US president after he was shot in Dallas. Many of the silversmiths in Istanbul are ethnic Armenians.

Here is a selection of her images which were part of the students' projects shown during the last evening of the workshop. Somewhat of a departure for Dilla, as it was shot in a photojournalistic style and in B&W.