Foreign tourists vote in Anadolu Agency photo contest

By Behcet Alkan

NEVSEHIR, Turkey (AA) - International tourists who visited the Cappadocia region here in Nevsehir province got a chance Wednesday to vote in Anadolu Agency's Photos of the Year.

Fifty images were selected for the 2019 contest from more than 750,000 photographs from different areas of the world, including Syria, Palestine, Russia, Germany and Spain.

The images were put to a vote in the news category which had 17 entries, life with 14 and sports had 19 with Turkish and English captions.

Claudia Ramos from Italy selected Tibta Pangin's photo, “Mount Sinabung Eruption” in the news category. It shows two onlookers as the eruption of the volcano in the Karo plateau of Karo Regency, North Sumatra, Indonesia, takes place under a menacing sky.

She also voted for “Among the leaves” by Erdal Turkoglu's in the life category and Sebnem Coskun's “World record” of free diver Sahika Ercumen swimming just below the surface of the water in a cave with the Turkish flag in the background for the sports category.

"All the photos in the contest are so meaningful," she said.

Brazilian Davide Mella chose Muhammed Enes Yildirim's “Controlled destruction” in which a chair, and what appears to be a cushion, tumble from a just exploded building, in the news category. He selected Erhan Elaldi's Beytullah's “Determination” in sports, which shows an athlete with no arms swimming.

“The photograph that shows the moment of the collapse of a building was full of energy. I had never seen a clear photograph like this that reflects a building's collapse,” he said.

“Mystic wind”, an image of Sufi dervishes twirling with different color costumes by Sergen Sezgin, received Silvano Mella's vote in news. The Brazilian also voted for Sebnem Coskun's photo of “Swimming babies” in life and Huseyin Yildiz's photo of “Winter feast” at Cildir Lake in sport, which depicts 13 horses and riders on a snow-covered terrain in Kars and Ardahan provinces in northeastern Turkey.

Voting at www.aa.com.tr will end Dec. 31.

Anadolu Agency's Photos of the Year award was first held in 2012.

*Writing by Fahri Aksut