Anadolu Agency's third photo contest will accept applications between Nov. 1, 2016, and Jan. 31, 2017

Anadolu Agency's third "Istanbul Photo Awards" contest will start accepting applications from early next month.

Applications will be accepted between Nov. 1, 2016 and Jan. 31, 2017, via "http://istanbulphotoawards.com".

Anadolu Agency Visual News Editor-in-Chief Ahmet Sel said the categories had been increased to eight from four.

Earlier, the contest consisted of news single and news story, sports single and sports story categories but in 2017, four new categories would be added, including nature-environment single, nature-environment story, portrait single and portrait multiple.

In the contest, the $3,000 "Young Photographer" award will be given for the first time to a winner under the age of 28; a separate $10,000 award will be given to the winner of the "Photo of the Year" award; winners in each other categories will be given $8,000 for first prize, $5,000 for the second and $3,000 for the third.

Anadolu Agency's Corporate Communication Director Esra Kirecci said the jury for the contest will be announced soon.

Turkish Airlines (THY) has sponsored the contest, which will also be supported by the Prime Ministry’s Promotion Fund and the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency.

The results of the contest will be announced by the end of March next year.

Last year, the photographer, Abd Doumany, whose photograph 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 at the Greek island of Lesbos for The New York Times, won in the single news category and later a Pulitzer Prize.

Shanghai Center of Photography Director Liu Heung Shing, Getty Images executive Georges De Keerle, AFP Photo Business Development Director Michel Scotto as well as Guillaume Herbaut, a World Press Photo prizewinner, were among last year's jury members.