By Dilan Pamuk
ANKARA (AA) - Bangladeshi Mohammed Shajahan's photo titled "Mom Love" won the Photo of the Year Award in the Istanbul Photo Awards, the seventh edition of the annual international photography contest held by Anadolu Agency to support photojournalists.
The COVID-19 pandemic ravaging the world has shown one more time how photojournalists and press members continue doing their jobs with devotion under challenging conditions.
In this challenging period, Anadolu Agency's Istanbul Photo Awards contest keeps supporting the sector in the best terms.
The winners of the Istanbul Photo Awards, revealing its quality by being a global platform where 12,000 photographers have registered in its seventh year, have been chosen by the international jury consisting of the prestigious names of the world of photography.
Bangladeshi photographer Mohammed Shajahan's photograph titled "Mom Love," selected from among nearly 15,000 photographs submitted from different parts of the world, won the Photo of the Year 2021 award.
In the Single News category, AFP photojournalist Yuri Cortez deserved the second prize with his work in which he pictured the prisoners in the Quezaltepeque Prison in El Salvador.
AP photojournalist Petros Giannakouris won the third-place award with his photograph reflecting the difficulties faced by the refugees who fled the camp they had been located in Greece.
The photographs by Cortez and Giannakouris have shown that different agendas take place in the world as well.
Information related to the 2021 jury and award-winning photographs of the previous years can be accessed via the website (http://istanbulphotoawards.com).
Reuters photojournalist Goran Tomasevic, NOOR Agency photojournalist Yuri Kozyrev, visual storyteller Marion Mertens, AFP Former Director of Photo Business Development Michel Scotto, author and photojournalist Deborah Copaken, Getty Images chief sports photojournalist Cameron Spencer, photojournalist Ahmet Sel, Anadolu Agency Visual News Editor-in-Chief Hasan Oymez, and Anadolu Agency Photo Editor Firat Yurdakul took seats in the jury.
The jury members selected the winners through a platform that was designed exclusively for the contest by the Anadolu Agency Information Technologies team due to the pandemic.
- 'By taking the contest to the next level each year, we support news photography which witnesses the moments'
Regarding the contest, Anadolu Agency Chairman of the Board and Director General Serdar Karagoz emphasized that the COVID-19 pandemic, which has taken hold of the whole world, once again revealed how difficult conditions photojournalists and press members continue to do their jobs with devotion.
"As Anadolu Agency, we continue supporting the sector with all-out strength through Istanbul Photo Awards contest. By taking the contest to the next level each year, we support news photography which witnesses the moments," he said.
Stating that nearly 15,000 photographs from different parts of the globe competed in the contest, Karagoz said, "Some 1,206 photographers of 96 different nationalities joined the contest with a total of 14,740 photographs.
Karagoz noted that the quality of the photographs submitted increased every year, and the jury members had great difficulty in selecting among them, and he continued:
"Becoming a platform where 12,000 photographers have registered in the seventh round of the contest highlights the quality of Istanbul Photo Awards. Our jury -- consisted of the prestigious names of the world of photography -- selected the winners on a platform that we prepared specially for the platform due to the pandemic. I thank each of them for their contributions to the contest."