I was born 1950 the youngest of 5 children, in Cyprus, within the picturesque farming village of Lurucina, also known as Akincilar. Throughout the years, my interests have been diverse and I have picked a variety of skills along the way, many of which have been self-taught.
From my early years, one of my earliest achievements was winning first, second and third prize in the same art competition with three separate pieces of work aged 11 and I started to take photographs at the age of 12 with a camera that my brother had sent to me from England.

I immigrated with my parents to England in 1964 aged 14, from a simple and frugal life living and farming off the land. I couldn't speak a single word of English and my eyes were suddenly opened to a completely different world of new opportunities where I wanted to take full advantage of everything I could.
Aged 14 I started school. With my minimum knowledge of English initially it was very difficult to understand and be understood, and together with the disruptive nature of the classes (the children would throw chairs at the teachers, a world apart from school in Cyprus) I did the best that I could. Within a month things became a little easier and I was beginning to communicate in English with my friends.
Photography
Throughout my life, my first passion is art and my second is photography. One day, as my English was improving, I was window-shopping in a photographic shop. As I browsed, I noticed some developing and printing kits. Up to that point I had no idea that an individual could print their own photographs. With my new English skills, I went into the shop and asked about the kit. I was told that it cost £39,10,06 [39 pounds 10 shillings and 6 pennies], which was a huge amount of money for me. However, I had decided from that day that I had to have it.
With this goal in mind, every penny that I was earning, helping my brothers in the kitchens of the hotels they worked in, were saved towards the kit and my mother gave me a helping hand making up the balance. Once I bought my kit, I didn't have a clue how to start using it, but with the shop's help and the instructions I started to print my own photographs. Needless to say, it took me a several tries before I produced quality prints but that was the beginning of my passion for photography. Over the years, with the benefit of having my own dark room I suppose it would be fair to say that I've tried most kind of developing and printing techniques including black and white, colour, slide and moving film.

Early jobs
At aged 16, my first real job was in a factory as a lathe operator making parts for fire extinguishers. A year later, tempted by better financial reward, I moved on to making brick mouldings machines. Then aged 18, with my late cousin Osman ( Ossie) Mustafa Ozlala we built a Photographic and Art Studio behind my uncle's Ossie's dad's café. It was from this that my future took another turn for the better.
Our new building, inadvertently, was beginning to take shape of a garage as one day a motorist stopped by the studio to ask if I could do a repair on his car. Despite a lack of experience I agreed to do so and asked him what was wrong with his car. My personality and character is such that I will give anything a go, even if I have never done it before, as I like to be challenged. My only experience of cars, up until that point was driving them!
The repair was to a damaged front valance and so I gave him a quote to repair it, which he agreed to. It took me a week to repair and whilst repairing, bypasses watching me working on the car also began to stop by as ask for their cars to be repaired.
Whenever, I came across work that I couldn't do, I would subcontract it out to local garages, enabling me to watch their skills while the repairs were being carried out. This way, I was able to learn the additional techniques and within a year my skills in car repairs had developed very rapidly. I found myself earning more money than could ever have thought possible and was motivated to put very long hours, where often I would work 24 hours as a stretch. I remember on one occasion working round the clock for three full days, having slept a total of only eighteen 18 hours at the end of three days. The business was going from strength to strength and within no time was a fully functional garage. The name of first garage was "G&O Lala Motors".
In 1969 I took six months off work to go back to Cyprus with Ossie and drill for water in land that we owned. I had no previous skills in drilling nor had I even seen a drill before. However, with the knowledge that I had picked up of engines and by using my common sense and determination, together with the encouragement of the other villagers to excavate for water around the village same with great success.
On my return to England in 1969, I set up my own repair garage in Bermondsey called Gunner Motor Repairs (GMR) and it was GMR that earned me my early retirement aged 52, in 2002. I married my wife Emel when I was 25 and Together we had a daughter named Melin (now aged 33) and a son named Aran (now aged 26), who were both privately schooled, worlds apart from the limited education I had growing up. My daughter, now married, is a solicitor and my son, single, is studying business information technology.
Other achievements and hobbies
Throughout the years, there have been many moments where I have pushed myself to see what I can achieve. One of those moments was at aged thirty, I obtained a private pilot’s license and bought my own plane. Some of my earliest paintings with me next to my plane can be seen in the gallery.
Another moment of me pushing myself, this time without thinking about it, was when I tackled two armed robbers after hearing shouting in the post office next door to GMR. I was awarded a bravery award for this in 1985. Another similar event, perhaps more of a moment of madness, came a year later when a Group 4 security van was involved in an incident which resulted in a sack of cash being thrown out of the van. I recovered the sack and [dutifully] returned it to Group 4.

Another one of my hobbies is competitive full-bore pistol shooting. As part of a shooting club I had the opportunity to take part in many competitions and shoot against many different shooting groups around the world. Competitively, I won several medals, including silver at the annual Bisley National Shooting Competition. I have also competed against the City boys, Metropolitan police, SAS and the KGB in Russia, each time wining a medal.
When I retired from the motor trade industry it took me two years to get used to not working. It was then that I started to use my spare time to start painting. I had always enjoyed drawing and sketching portraits and from a young age seemed to be rather artistic. It was therefore a natural transition for me to develop this further now that I finally had some spare time to dedicate to it.
When I first started to paint, I was surprised to find how naturally this came to me. Although I had no particular technique I just decided to paint oil on paper and after a few painting, moved on to painting on canvas.
I love painting portraits and have always been fascinated by those artists who paint portraits. Over the years I have taken many photographs mainly of the people around me and many of which I love. However, for me, I believe the ultimate way of capturing the essence of those people is through the expression on canvas. A direction that I am striving toward in my painting. In my opinion, I don't think there is a higher compliment that one can give a person, than by painting their image.
Painting a portrait gives the artist the chance to paint the real person [as they see them?] whereas [a photo is a factual snapshot of that person in that moment in time] not always possible to achieve. It is this challenge that inspired me to paint portraits.
My Mother has been my biggest inspiration and I owe most of my success to her. Artistically, I have been most inspired by Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt.

Summary: Aside from my love of art, to the best of my knowledge, my personal achievements to date include being the first person from Akincilar to: film a wedding party with 16mm film, (1966); drill for water in Akincilar, (1969); video a wedding party (my own), (1975); and to get a pilots license and owning my own plane, (1980).

To see me painting my son Aran's portrait in my studio, please visit the below live youtube link:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=joeguneryusuf&aq=f

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVAzHgWHbzA

new addition

About two years ago, I first heard the music of the Turkish artiste Candan Ercetin as Emel had left her CD playing in the car. Before this point, I very rarely listened to Turkish music and it was not something that I would have voluntarily chosen to play However, when the first song of Candan's CD came on I left it to play. The song was pleasant enough to my ears and so I left the rest of the CD to play. As the second song played, I found myself liking this one even more than the first. One by one I listened to the entire CD and when it finally fished I found myself wanting to hear it all over again! This was a first for me in terms of Turkish music.

As the months passed by, I listened to more of Candan's albums and Inspired by her music, I decided to paint Candan's portrait (this was one of my earliest paintings). Now if you enter my studio you will most likely hear the sound of Candan singing in the background.

Given Emel's and my mutual love of Candan's music, we had been trying for a while to see her live in concert and were willing to travel to see her perform. One day, while surfing the internet, Emel came across a website that gave information about a forthcoming concert in Istanbul. The concert was in a week’s time [10th June 2009] so I immediately went on the website and got in touch with the organiser to arrange for two tickets.

Emel suggested that I take the painting and if the opportunity arose to presented it to Candan. I mentioned this idea to the organiser when I was buying the tickets, and he also suggested that we take the painting and if possible would try to send a message to Candan regarding the painting.

On the night of the concert the organiser, true to his word, spoke to Candan Ercetin’s manager and was able to present the portrait directly to Candan. The manager then returned and told us that Candan would like to meet us after the show.

After the concert, which in itself was better than we could ever have hoped for, we were escorted to her tour bus to meet her. Candan, who was an amazingly down-to-earth person made us feel so welcome and the icing on the cake was when she said that she loved the painting and that she would always treasure it. For me, I am just happy that the painting has gone to a good home.