Istanbul Photo Awards exhibition kicks off in Ankara

ANKARA

An annual international photography exhibition, the Istanbul Photo Awards 2021, kicked off in Turkey’s capital Ankara on Oct. 11.

Anadolu Agency Chairman of the Board and Director-General Serdar Karagöz began his speech with a sound of intensive care unit to mark the story of the winning photo from Bangladesh.

“Mahmuda, 44, who is in quarantine, is trying to smell the birthday flowers left by his daughter from the other side of the door,” Karagöz said.

He said the coronavirus pandemic, which affected everyone’s lives, broke up many families and caused social isolation, also affected many participants’ perspectives.

Karagöz emphasized the significance of photojournalism by saying: “A hundred years from now, the photograph will make people feel the same things.”

On the fact that photographers won awards for their work in war, conflict, and disaster zones such as Azerbaijan, Syria, and Lebanon, he said photography has no borders.

Next week, the exhibition will take place in New York, he said, and hoped that it would also be organized in Japan and the other parts of the world if the pandemic conditions allow.

A selection of 74 photographs covering major events around the world over the past year is on display at the CerModern Arts Center until Oct. 24.

They include entries and winners of the news photography category of the awards, ranging from snapshots of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on human life to disasters such as the August 2020 Beirut port blast.

The seventh edition of the awards and the exhibition are both organized by Anadolu Agency.

National flag carrier Turkish Airlines and state-run aid group Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TİKA) were the official partners for the awards, which saw some 15,000 entries and 14 eventual winners from 12 countries.

Bangladeshi Mohammed Shajahan’s photo titled “Mom Love” won the Photo of the Year Award.

Italian photojournalist Fabio Bucciarelli was this year’s first prize winner in the “Story News” category, while Uğur Yıldırım, a photojournalist at Turkey’s Sabah newspaper, won second prize for his work in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Yıldırım visually recorded the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia from the war zone.

In the same category, Getty Images photojournalist Chris McGrath won the third prize for his work on the massive Beirut Port explosion in August 2020.

The international jury of nine, including photojournalists and a visual storyteller, decide the winners every year.

More information about the awards and the winning photos can be found on the event’s website, www.istanbulphotoawards.com.

They will be included in the contest’s photobook, and also displayed at exhibitions for visitors.