İstanbul Photo Awards is an international news photography contest organized
by Anadolu Ajansı, global news agency for more than 100th years . The contest aims to contribute to the sphere of news photography
and offers a perspective shaped by the region’s unique position at the center
of diverse cultures. The awards reward endeavors of courageous and talented professional photographers from around the world on merit. İstanbul Photo Awards has become one of the most widely
known news photography contests in the world.
Along with the generous awards of the contest aiming to support the hard work
and dedication of news photographers worldwide, the application is totally free.
Istanbul Photo Awards receives a lot of attention from photojournalists from
all around the world. Around 18,000 photographers registered to the contest since its first year. 2024 is the 10th year of the contest.
In 2015, Daniel Berehulak won the Photo of the Year award with his photograph
depicting the Ebola crisis. In 2016, Abd Doumany’s image of an injured Syrian
boy was chosen as Photo of the Year by the international jury and in 2017, photographer
Frederic Lafargue’s image titled “Escaping from Daesh” was chosen Photo of the
Year 2017. In 2018, Damir Sagolj won the Photo of the Year award with the image
of a dead boy in refugee camp in Banglades. Ahmad Gharabli's photo of a Palestinian
women and Israeli police security officer taking photo of each other chosen
as Photo of the Year 2019. Yik Fei Lam, Hong Kong based photojournalist, got the Photo of the Year 2020 award. Mohammed Shajahan received the 2021 Photo of the Year awards with his photo titled Mom Love. Konstantinos Tsakalidis received the award in 2022 with his photo about wildfires for Bloomberg. Sergey Kozlov awarded with the Photo of the Year 2023 prize with his Ukraine-Russia War titled image for EPA.
Mohammed Salem, Palestinian Reuters photographer, got the Photo of the Year award in İstanbul Photo Awards 10th Year with his photo titled "A Palestinian Woman Embraces the Body of Her Niece".
All the winning photographs have the power to engage people against wars and
conflicts, and to familiarize them with different cultures. The jury, consisting of prestigious names from different fields of photography, had a very
tough time selecting the most powerful photos of the year from such a strong
field. Every year international jury meets to select the winners.
Every year online applications are accepted via
website. The results of the contest announced by the
end of jury gathering each year. Award winning photographs will be published
in photobook which will be send almost everywhere all around the world to the
photography professionals and displayed at exhibitions in significant galleries around the
world such as Istanbul, Shanghai, New York, Vienna, Tokyo, London and Moscow.