Bosnian photojournalist Damir Sagolj’s striking shot of a dead boy, his eyes covered with leaves, was chosen Photo of the Year 2018 in the Istanbul Photo Awards. Titled “Boy,” the photo was taken at a refugee camp in Bangladesh for Reuters.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Jury President Marion Mertens, who is the senior digital editor at Paris Match magazine, said this year’s winner was “really strong”.
“It is a picture that explains a lot about what the big story of the year was,” Mertens said.
“It is a very moving picture while it is also a very strong picture,” she said, adding that the Istanbul Photo Awards are about being able to “have strength and emotion at the same time in photography”.
A jury member, Michel Scotto, the director of photobusiness development at Agence France-Presse, said the jury was “more or less agreed on the winner”.
On the winner this year, Scotto said: “There was no real discussion; we know it stands out from the rest of pictures that were represented.”
Georges DeKeerle, photographer and visual media adviser, said this year’s winner was “one of the best winners that I have seen”.
DeKeerle describes this year’s winner as “a picture that doesn’t need a caption. It is a picture that tells the story without being in your face”.
Another jury member Cameron Spencer is an award-winning chief photographer at Getty Images based in Sydney, Australia.
- 'Great exposure for photographers'
Spencer said that this year’s winner “deserves to be the winner and the whole jury was onboard with the decision.”
According to Spencer, the Istanbul Photo Awards is important as it gives journalists from around the world a platform to show their works across the world via exhibits.
“The Istanbul Photo Awards travels around the world, different cities, and it is great exposure for photographers,” he said.
Nearly 37,000 photographs from 125 countries competed for this year's prize.
Canadian photojournalist Kevin Frayer won the first prize in the Story News category for his series on the Rohingya he did for Getty Images.
Lukas Schulze, a freelance photojournalist based in Germany, got first prize in the Single Sports category with his photo “Athlete vs. Animal,” while Pavel Volkov from Russia won first prize in the Story Sports category for his series taken for Russian daily Vechernyaya Moskva.
Malaysian photojournalist Muhamed Fathil Asri from The New Straits Times Press won first prize in the Single Nature & Environment category, while Marcus Yam’s work for The Los Angeles Times was awarded first prize in the Story, Nature & Environment category.
Andrew McConnell’s series taken for London-based Panos Pictures won first prize in the Story Portrait category, while Russian photographer Sergei Stroitelev got first prize in the Story Daily Life category.
Ezra Acayan, a freelance photojournalist in the Philippines, won the Young Photographer award, given for the second time to a winner under age 28.
This year’s jury they gave Honorable Mentions to Rodrigo Cabrita in the Story, Nature & Environment category and to Anastasia Rudenko in the Story Daily Life category.
For a list of all the winners, visit: http://istanbulphotoawards.com/
The winning photos will be compiled in an annual book and will be shown at exhibits in Turkey and abroad throughout the year.