Istanbul Photo Awards 2018 applications close

By Meltem Bulur

ANKARA (AA) - The period to submit applications for the Istanbul Photo Awards, an international news and sports photography contest organized by Anadolu Agency, has ended, the agency said on Friday.

Nearly 37,000 photographs from 125 countries were sent in between November 2017 and January 2018.

The contest’s jury is scheduled to meet in Istanbul in March before announcing the winners by the end of month.

This year marks the contest’s fourth year but this time it features an expanded range of categories.

There will be 10 categories, including single news and story news, single sports and story sports, single portrait and story portrait, single nature-environment and story nature-environment.

The total prize money for all 10 categories in the contest -- sponsored by Turkish Airlines and the Turkish Coordination and Cooperation Agency (TIKA) -- totals $165,000.

The winner of Photo of the Year will be awarded $10,000, while winners in other categories will receive $8,000 for first prize, $5,000 for second and $3,000 for third.

The jury consists of returnees Marion Mertens, digital editor of French newsweekly Paris Match, NOOR agency photojournalist Yuri Kozyrev, Australian Getty Images photographer Cameron Spencer, director of photo business development at Agence France-Presse Michel Scotto; founder of the Shanghai Center of Photography (SCOP) Liu Heung Shing. photographer and visual media adviser Georges De Keerle, Anadolu Agency Visual News Editor-in-Chief Ahmet Sel; and Anadolu Agency photography editor Firat Yurdakul.

This year’s panel welcomes for their first participation -- Andrei Polikanov, former photo editor at Time Magazine, and Frederic Lafargue, winner of last year’s Photo of the Year, for his “Fleeing From Daesh” picture.

Detailed information about the contest is available at istanbulphotoawards.com.