Coşkun Teziç Underwater Photographer
Coşkun Teziç is an “unofficial” member of the Bougainville Dive Team and a very serious and highly qualified diver. He holds CMAS 3 *, PADI EFR, PADI Rescue Diver, and PADI Divemaster certifications and he is a former board member of the Underwater Sports Federation of Turkey (Türkiye Sualtı Sporları Federasyonu).
“Coşkun abi” has many long-time friends among the members of the Bougainville dive team and the international diver community. Underwater (UW) Photography is his passion and he calls himself a “serious amateur” of both underwater and landscape photography.
Coşkun is famous in Turkey for many reasons but people who are not divers will know him as a professional basketball player, sports enthusiast and youth sports advocate. The BT boat is a very merry place when “Coşkun abi” comes aboard. Hoş Geldeniz!
Coşkun has two daughters, İpek and Pınar. He was born in Istanbul in 1958 and graduated from Haydarpaşa High School and went on to earn a diploma as a Science major from Istanbul University. He later attended Anadoluhisarı Sports Academy and then joined the Fenerbahçe Basketball Club (Fenerbahçe Ülker) as a professional player in 1974. Coşkun retired from active play in 1984.
In 1988 he became club manager of the Fenerbahçe basketball club. In 1991 Coşkun was the administrative assistant to the coordinator of the Turkish Basketball Federation for two years, he then took on management duties of the Turkish Basketball National Team and from 1993 through 1996 he also served as general secretary of the Ülker Sports Club.
In 1996 Coşkun joined the Tofaş Sports Club as the administrative coordinator where he has been ever since. He is a trustee of the Educational Volunteers Foundation of Turkey (Eğitim Gönüllüleri Vakfı) and is the coordinator of the TEGV Basketball Volunteers project.
He first began diving in the 1990s in Çanakkale. Since then he has logged over 1,000 dives and has been diving in most of the major seas and oceans of the world, including the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts of Turkey, the Red Sea in Egypt, and the oceans surrounding Malaysia and Indonesia. He said one of the most dangerous places he dove was in Bali where the Indian and Pacific oceans come together and which creates a “washing machine” effect, a whirlpool that can drag divers to the bottom or can slam them against the underwater wall.
Coşkun made his first trip to Kaş in 2000 for a diving holiday. His friends told him that if he was going to dive in Turkey he should dive in Kaş. He was already an accomplished diver and had finished his Rescue Diver qualification before he came to Kaş. He sent a FAX to several different dive centers requesting information about their facilities so he could plan his holiday. The only response he received was from Bougainville Diving!
He said the BT dive team welcomed him in a courteous and professional manner and Coşkun was impressed by their thorough and professional briefings before he took his first dive with them. Atila and the other divers always emphasised safety and they impressed Coşkun with their careful attention to environmental awareness. He always returns to the BT Dive Team because it is like home to him. He dives only with BT because their high standards have been consistent, their equipment is well maintained and the team is organised. The BT boat is usually first out to a dive site and the first to return, they do not waste a diver’s time. He said that when he was a board member of the Underwater Sports Federation of Turkey (Türkiye Sualtı Sporları Federasyonu) he visited nearly all of the dive schools in Turkey. He believes he knows the differences between those who offer quality and safe diving and those who do not, which is why he always dives with the BT dive team.
Coşkun has known Emre Çevikel for over 10 years and believes that Emre, as lead diver, is continuing the culture of professionalism in which Emre was trained because he has worked in the BT culture of high standards set by Atila and Ercan in the BT Dive team formative years.
Because of Coşkun’s considerable skills, the team attempts to accommodate not only him but other skilled divers who return to the boat. The dive team works hard to give accomplished divers a good spot in which to dive so as to provide a diving challenge. Coşkun knows that he will always be paired with an equally experienced diver or one-to-one with a BT dive guide. He has a high comfort level with the BT team. When he announces to them that he will arrive they also provide him with a larger, 18 litre tank because of his great size (190-195 cm tall).
He is very active in a variety of both official and volunteer diving activities. One example was when he served as a board member of the Underwater Sports Federation of Turkey (Türkiye Sualtı Sporları Federasyonu) from 2001 through 2003.
He currently is a board member of the Turkish Underwater Archaeology Foundation (Türkiye Sualtı Arkeoljisi Vakfı).
He has volunteered his time to the Alternative Camp diving for the disabled and rehabilitation efforts and in 2007 he joined the SAD Underwater Research Society (Sualtı Araştırmaları Derneği).
Uluburun ancient sailing ship replica
He was involved with the Kaş ArcheoPark Project
which was responsible for the building, sailing and eventual sinking of the Uluburun Replica.
He first started underwater (UW) photography in 2000 which is unusual as most UW photographers started their work on land.
He is attracted to UW photography because he has the ability to share underwater beauty with the rest of the world by bringing it “to the surface” through his photographs.
His first underwater photography exhibition was with the Underwater Society of Uludag University (Sualtı Topluluğu).
Many of his underwater photos are regularly published in Marine Photo (Sualtı Gazetesi) Magazine as well as Underwater World (Sualtı Dünyası) and 4×4 Free Life magazines.
Sea and Sea MX10 UW Camera
Coikun’s first camera was a Sea and Sea MX-10 film camera. He later progressed to Nikon brand cameras and has stayed with them ever since. His first Nikon was a film camera, a model F80.
His later cameras were all digital and included a D100 and a D300. He currently uses a Nikon D3S.
WWII Italian Plane Wreck
He told us that taking photographs of the WWI Italian plane wreck at 60 metres depth is always a challenge. Because of the depth, his time is limited and it is dark down there but he always finds that dive to be exciting.
He said one of the most difficult underwater photos he has taken was when he discovered two crabs “In flagrante delicto” which were under a rock. They were under a rock in a difficult place to reach and he had to maintain his buoyancy and at the same time not disturb them. The photo is called “No Comment.”
In 2002, Coşkun saw some of the work of İzzet Keribar work which started him to think about landscape photography. Since then, he has had the chance of getting many shots of various landscapes during my travels around the world. He likes to put people and especially children into his land portraits.
Many of Coşkun’s photographs can be seen on his Facebook Page. His Tofaş Family web site details his current position and accomplishments. He was interviewed for a TV program. In the video below you can see him chatting with the interviewer Coşkun Teziç ile Sohbet Ettik – TV Interview – “Chatting with enthusiastic Teziç”
Ş. Coşkun Teziç is also featured in the online magazine Technotoday. The article is in Turkish and has a series of his photographs (Fotoğraf Portfolyo).
Anatolian wind blowing in Tofaşball – 10/07/2004
“Tofaşball Basketball Fest…After going to the Sertab Erener concert on Monday evening, all the teams visited the TOFAŞ factory and the Anatolian Cars Museum on Tuesday. The Administrative Coordinator of TOFAŞ Sports Club, Coşkun Teziç said that their project set an example for the ’12 Gigantic Man Basketball Schools’ by emphasizing that they aimed at contributing to the formation of identity and character of the children through the sports culture in regions that have not completed their socio-economic development.”
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