Winning images in 2017 contest also available at www.istanbulphotoawards.com

Anadolu Agency has published an album of the winning images in this year's "Istanbul Photo Awards 2017" that saw around 25,000 entries in eight categories.

Twenty-two photographers from 17 countries received awards at the March contest sponsored by Turkish Airlines and Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA).

Winners were chosen between March 19-22 during a meeting in Central Anatolia’s historic Cappadocia region.

French photographer Frederic Lafargue’s Fleeing Daesh, which was named Photo of the Year, is the album cover.

Aris Messinis’s series Death in the Mediterranean for Agence France Presse, which won the News Series Award, and Adam Pretty's photo Below the Surface taken for Getty Images, which won the Sports Single Award, will also be included in the album.

Other winning photographs include Patrick Smith's Sports Series, Mary Gelman's images of victims of domestic violence, Kemal Jufri’s Feeding Orphaned Orangutans, Johnny Miller's series on Papwa Sewgolum Golf Course, and pictures of Street Training in Gaza taken by Hosam Salem -- a freelance photographer who took the Young Photojournalist Award for the first time in the contest's three-year history.

The photo album will be delivered to professional photographers both in Turkey and around the world.

It will also be available at www.istanbulphotoawards.com, the competition's official website.

Winning images to go on display in Izmir

An exhibition of the winning images will open in Turkey's western Izmir province on Sep. 7. The Folkart Gallery will display the images for a month.

Earlier, a total of 126 images were displayed in Istanbul and Ankara.

Anadolu Agency is also planning to open two more exhibitions in New York and Moscow in October.

Renowned photographer of wars in Chechnya, Georgia, Afghanistan, and Iraq had been battling liver cancer

Stanley Greene, an award-winning photojournalist for Amsterdam-based Noor Images, passed away Friday in Paris.

He had been undergoing treated for liver cancer. He was 68.

Ahmet Sel, the head of Anadolu Agency’s Visual News Department, said he had met Greene in the early 1990s in Moscow while covering the fall of the Soviet Union.

“I crossed paths with him a couple of years later in the mountains of Chechnya, which were then being bombarded by Russian forces," he added.

"I was quite impressed by his persistent optimism and the firm worldview reflected in his photos.”

Esra Kirecci, Anadolu Agency’s corporate communications director, said she met Greene at an Istanbul Photo Awards workshop. “He took part in our program and fascinated everybody with his sincerity and knowledge," she said.

"We felt as if he was the youngest person there despite his age and advanced illness. It was our pleasure to meet and work with him," she added.

Greene was in Istanbul this March for talks as part of Anadolu Agency’s third Istanbul Photo Awards.

Greene, one of the few African-American photographers who worked internationally, was known for honest photographs of wars, including conflicts in Chechnya, Georgia, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

Winning images on display at Cer Modern Arts Center until May 30

The second exhibition of photographs in Anadolu Agency’s 2017 Istanbul Photo Awards that honored 22 photographers from 17 countries opened here Thursday.

Anadolu Agency's Deputy Director-General Mustafa Ozkaya touted the awards expansion in a short period and said he hoped to see more growth in the coming years.

"We are pleased to see that the Istanbul Photo Awards have now gone beyond the agency to become a Turkish brand and I hope that together we will all see even more important developments in the years to come,” he said during opening ceremonies at the CerModern Arts Centre.

Ozkaya said a third exhibition would be held in Moscow and the UN headquarters in New York in the fall.

The agency's Visual News Editor-in-Chief Ahmet Sel said the awards have grown into one of the most prestigious and significant photo contests since it began just three years ago.

News categories were added to the competition as it garnered more attention each year, according to Sel.

"This year we have portrait and nature-environment category which we didn’t have last year. Next year, we will add a Daily Life category,” he said.

Frederic Lafargue's image, Fleeing from Daesh, that was named Photo of the Year, is among the photographs on display.

For the first time in the contest's history, Hosam Salem, a freelance photojournalist in Gaza, received the Young Photojournalist Award for Street Training in Gaza. The new award is given to a winner younger than 28 years of age.

Winners were chosen March 19-22 during a special meeting in Central Anatolia’s historic Cappadocia region, and included Aris Messinis' series, Death in the Mediterranean, for Agence France Presse (AFP) that took the News Series Award; Adam Pretty’s, Below the Surface taken for Getty Images won the Sports Single Award, while Patrick Smith received the Sports Series Award.

Mary Gelman won the top prize in the Portrait-Multiple category for her images of domestic violence victims. There was no winner in the Portrait-Single category.

Kemal Jufri’s Feeding Orphaned Orangutans won the Nature-Environment Story Award, while Johnny Miller's Papwa Sewgolum Golf Course photo series took home the Nature-Environment Single Award.

A total of $133,000 was awarded in eight separate categories, in addition to $3,000 for the Young Photojournalist Award and a separate $10,000 Photo of the Year Award.

The 126 images will be on display at the CerModern Arts Center until May 30. The exhibition was previously displayed in Istanbul April 2-16.

The awards are sponsored by Turkish Airlines and the Turkish Coordination and Cooperation Agency (TIKA).

For more photographs of the exhibiton please visit;

http://istanbulphotoawards.com/Exhibitions.aspx

Winning photos go on display May 4 at Cer Modern Art Center, exhibition runs till May 30

An exhibition hosting the winning images from Anadolu Agency's Istanbul Photo Awards 2017 will open in Turkish capital Ankara on May 4.

A total of 126 images will go on display at CerModern Art Center till May 30. The exhibition was previously put on display in Istanbul between April 2 and 16.

French photo journalist Frederic Lafargue's “Fleeing Daesh” was named Photo of the Year in the contest which saw around 25,000 entries submitted this year in eight categories, with single image and picture story categories for News, Sports, Portrait and Nature & Environment.

Aris Messinis, with his photo series "Death in the Mediterranean" taken for Agence France Presse (AFP), won the News Series Award.

Adam Pretty's photo "Below the Surface" taken for Getty Images won the Sports Single Award while Patrick Smith won the Sports Series Award.

Mary Gelman won the first prize in Portrait-Multiple category for her photographs of victims of domestic violence, while there was no winner in the Portrait-Single category.

Kemal Jufri's photo "Feeding Orphaned Orangutans" won the Nature-Environment Story Award, while Johnny Miller's Papwa Sewgolum Golf Course photo series took home the Nature-Environment Single Award.

For the first time in the contest's three-year history, Hosam Salem, a freelance photojournalist in Gaza, received the Young Photojournalist Award for his photo called "Street Training in Gaza". The new award is given to a winner under the age of 28.

Twenty-two photographers from 17 countries received awards at the event sponsored by Turkish Airlines and Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency, TIKA.

Frederic Lafargue's escaping From Daesh won Photo of the Year in 2017

The winner of the Istanbul Photo Awards’ 2017 Photo of the Year said on Tuesday his image -- Escaping From Daesh -- was intended to show “the escape process of the civilian population” from areas controlled by the terror group.

In an interview, Frederic Lafargue he and a writer friend were assigned to prepare a story and photographs about the civilian population in Mosul, northern Iraq, for Paris Match news magazine.

Mosul has been at the center of fierce fighting between Iraqi forces and the Daesh terror group.

"We came up with an idea of showing the escape process of the civilian population from the impact of Daesh in the Mosul region and we wanted to explain how the escaping civilian population was being secured," he said.

Lafargue started his career at a local newspaper in France in 1988 and started working on nationals in 1991 as a local correspondent in southwestern France.

Having followed Turkish photography for a long time, Lafargue said the quality of work in the country was at a high level.

"I think there is a competitive photography school in Turkey. I have many Turkish photographer friends," he added.

"I am honored to have won this award… I think this is an exceptional exhibition and other competitions should be inspired by it,” Lafargue said.

Last year, photographers Abd Doumany, whose image of an injured Syrian boy was chosen as Photo of the Year by an international jury, and Sergey Ponomarev, who caught images of refugees arriving on the Greek island of Lesbos for The New York Times, won the single news category and later a Pulitzer Prize.

In 2015, Daniel Berehulak was the winner of the competition's Photo of the Year for his coverage on the Ebola epidemic in Liberia after his work won the Pulitzer Prize.

For more photographs of the exhibition please visit;

http://istanbulphotoawards.com/Exhibitions.aspx