Born in 1960 in Istanbul, Çetin has been educating himself in the field of photography since his student days. He completed his undergraduate degree in the Department of Psychology at Boğaziçi University and his master's degree in Visual Communication Design at Istanbul Bilgi University. He lives and works in Istanbul.

The artist primarily creates optically based works. He seeks ways to add subjective touches to photography's inherent deficiencies—such as its flat, meaning-lacking nature, its recording of only the visual component of a moment, and its being an essentially shocking tool of representation that lacks scent, sound, or volume. This search extends beyond the visual arts into efforts to construct meaning through text, to conduct performances, and to collaborate collectively and interdisciplinarily. His works focus on concepts such as memory, nature, existence, death, fate, sorrow, ownership, and time. His writing often features dark humor.

By playing with scale in his works, he endeavors to make the invisible visible through the technical possibilities of photography, accompanied by subjective narratives. The artist describes his more than 50 years of exploration as a journey from making beautiful or striking photographs to creating meaningful photographs.

Since his first exhibition, Familiar Things (1988), produced using his self-developed paper negative painting technique, he has participated in numerous exhibitions both domestically and internationally. Among his other solo exhibitions and shows, which he created through alternative approaches leveraging his technical expertise in photography, are Soft Things, Reincarnation, These Photos Don’t Exist, *Ticket*, Life Kills, Approach, New Age, Silver Planet, You’re Mine, and Backstage. His 1993 exhibition Reincarnation was the first digital photo series exhibited in Turkey in the field of photographic art.

The 85-hour-long performance *Sleep*, which he performed in 1997, is regarded as the first long-duration performance in Turkey.

In the late 1980s, Çetin was one of the founders of the Rütte Photography Group, a gathering of innovative figures. Since 2018, he has been one of the two members (along with Eda Yiğit) of the Rubber Hammer initiative, which performs interactive works in the field of performance art. He values and continues to collaborate with artists from different disciplines.

To make a living, Çetin works in promotional photography, editorial photography, consultancy, teaching, and translation in the field of photography techniques and technology. Since the late 1980s, he has contributed to photography education. Institutions where he has served on the teaching staff include Istanbul University Faculty of Communication, Yıldız Technical University Vocational School, Istanbul Bilgi University Faculty of Communication (Photography and Video Program Coordinator), Galatasaray University Faculty of Communication, Marmara University Faculty of Fine Arts, Fachhochschule Hagenberg (Linz, Austria), Akademi Istanbul, İFSAK, Galata Fotoğrafhanesi (which he co-founded with Yücel Tunca), Bilgi Education, Ka Atelier, and BUM Atelier.

He is currently a member of the teaching staff at Bahçeşehir University and Koç University and a board member of the Ayvalık Art, Culture, and Education Foundation (ASKEV). He is also a project consultant at the Bülent Eczacıbaşı Foundation Photography Research Center and a former advisory board member of the Pamukbank Photography Gallery and the Photography Gallery of Istanbul Modern Art Museum.

His works are included in institutional collections such as Istanbul Modern Art Museum, Evin Art Gallery, and TÜYAP, as well as private collections.

Books:

- Free Rhinoceros (2004, Second Edition 2018)

- TutKeep (2018)