Life Style of Maryam Sahinyan

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Maryam Sahinyan was a famed photographer who is considered the first woman studio photographer in Turkey.She was of Armenian descent.Maryam Şahinyan was born at Sahinyan Konası, now known as the Camlı kosk in the city center of Sivas, Turkey.Her grandfather, Agop Sahinyan Pasa, was the representative of Sivas in the first Ottoman Parliament established in 1877.After the Armenian Genocide of 1915, at the age of 4, Maryam Sahinyan escaped to Istanbul via Samsun leaving behind many assets such as the Sahinyan Konak, 5 flour mills, and large amounts of real estate.The family settled in the Harbiye district of Istanbul and soon adjusted to a new lifestyle under the Republican Era of the Turkish Republic. She attended the local Armenian school Esayan. Maryam Sahinyan's father Mihran was avidly interested in photography. In 1933 he began to work for the Galatasaray Photography Studio in the Beyoglu district of Istanbul. In 1936, Maryam's mother Dikranuhi died a sudden death and left the family financially strained. Due to these circumstances, Maryam was forced to dropout of the French School Sainte-Pulcherie she attended in order to help her father out in the studio. By 1937, in order to assist the financial burden of the family, she started managing the studio independently. Maryam Şahinyan managed the studio until 1985. She died at her home on Hanımefendi Sokak in 1996 and is buried in Sisli Armenian Cemetery.Sahinyan left behind a photographic archive made up of approximately 200,000 images. Maryam Sahinyan is considered the first woman photographer in Turkey.She knew French, Italian, Armenian and Turkish.