Two veteran photojournalists Russia's Yuri Kozyrev and the U.S.' Stanley Greene talked about their experience during wars from Afghanistan to Iraq on Sunday in Istanbul.
The two from Amsterdam-based photo agency Noor are in Istanbul for talks as part of the third edition of Anadolu Agency's Istanbul Photo Awards, which this year turned into a weeklong event with the addition of workshops and talks.
Speaking during the event, Anadolu Agency's Visual News Editor-in-Chief Ahmet Sel said participation in the workshops this year was high.
Sel added that an exhibition displaying the selected photos from the Istanbul Photo Awards would be opened at Istanbul's Tophane-I Amire on April 2 with the cooperation of Istanbul's Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University.
“We decided that this event should go a little further than a photo contest.
“It will continue expanding both in Istanbul and abroad," Sel added.
He later introduced the two veteran journalists, who talked about their agency Noor, an Arabic word meaning light, and their experience during wars and uprisings, especially in the Middle East.
Kozyrev, an award-winning photojournalist, who worked for Time Magazine among many other media outlets covering global issues in the Middle Eastern counties such as Iraq, Yemen, Tunisia, Egypt, showed short videos about his works in those countries.
“I do believe it was a huge mistake," he told the crowd about the Iraqi war. “Now we are facing the consequences of this. There is a new phase of this war," he said.
Greene, another award-winning photojournalist who turned from being a fashion photographer into a conflict photographer, also showed his works from The Western Front, a documentation of the 70s and 80s punk scene in San Francisco as well as the conflict in Chechnya.
A total of 16 participants took part in the Istanbul Photo Awards Workshop, including from Anadolu Agency, young photojournalists employed in national media organizations as well as students from the university's photography department.
Turkish Airlines is sponsoring the awards along with the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency. A total of $133,000 will be awarded across eight different categories and the Young Photo Correspondent section.
