For his project entitled, In the Shadow of the Sun, Bucan had this to say: “I moved to the Van region in 2010 to work as a photography teacher at the Yüzüncü Yıl University. Of course I was also aware that Van has witnessed many cultures and peoples and is marked profoundly by its traditional villages, mountains, lakes, and islands. As a photographer this was definitely something I wanted to explore. And then there was the ever-present sun, which the ancient Urartu must have been inspired by when they named the region ‘Tuşba,’ (the city of the sun). And so in 2011, I entitled my project In The Shadow of the Sun, and began to explore hidden lives. I use the word hidden, because once I traversed the steep paths and reached remote mountain villages such as Toreli, Bilgi, and Uzuntekne, I was greeted with a kind of lifestyle very few of us have ever witnessed. I really see these hidden lives as the antithesis of our technology driven culture.