Spanish envoy votes in Anadolu Agency photo contest

By Tugrul Cam

ANKARA (AA) - Spain’s ambassador to Turkey voted in Anadolu Agency's Photos of the Year competition for this year, choosing his favorite entries in the news, life and sports categories.

In the news category, Juan Gonzalez-Barba selected Ozan Efeoglu’s photo showing damage caused by floods in Turkey’s southern Hatay province.

An aerial photo shows people using a boat after heavy rains in the province.

In the life category, the ambassador voted for Golbasi lake in Turkey’s Hatay, a photo taken by Anadolu Agency photojournalist Erdal Turkoglu, showing a man riding a wooden boat at Golbasi lake.

“All of them are related to water, and all of them are aerial, and the three of them are superb. So, it was not an easy choice,” the envoy said about his choices.

Reminding that Spain saw heavy floods this year and the previous year, Gonzalez-Barba said these photos “reminds us of risks involved, if we continue mistreating nature.”

In the sports category, the ambassador picked Huseyin Yildiz’s photo taken on Feb. 09, 2019 at Cildir Crystal Lake Winter Festival in Ardahan.

The first contest of the agency was held in 2012. This year, 50 images were selected from more than 750,000 photographs from different parts 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 19 and sports had 14 entries with captions in Turkish and English languages.

Last year, 223,000 people took part in the voting.

This year's voting will continue through Dec. 31 at Anadolu Agency's website (aa.com.tr).