By Zehra Aydin

ANKARA

The second exhibition of photographs in Anadolu Agency’s 2017 Istanbul Photo Awards that honored 22 photographers from 17 countries opened here Thursday.

Anadolu Agency's Deputy Director-General Mustafa Ozkaya touted the awards expansion in a short period and said he hoped to see more growth in the coming years.

"We are pleased to see that the Istanbul Photo Awards have now gone beyond the agency to become a Turkish brand and I hope that together we will all see even more important developments in the years to come,” he said during opening ceremonies at the CerModern Arts Centre.

Ozkaya said a third exhibition would be held in Moscow and the UN headquarters in New York in the fall.

The agency's Visual News Editor-in-Chief Ahmet Sel said the awards have grown into one of the most prestigious and significant photo contests since it began just three years ago.

News categories were added to the competition as it garnered more attention each year, according to Sel.

"This year we have portrait and nature-environment category which we didn’t have last year. Next year, we will add a Daily Life category,” he said.

Frederic Lafargue's image, Fleeing from Daesh, that was named Photo of the Year, is among the photographs on display.

For the first time in the contest's history, Hosam Salem, a freelance photojournalist in Gaza, received the Young Photojournalist Award for Street Training in Gaza. The new award is given to a winner younger than 28 years of age.

Winners were chosen March 19-22 during a special meeting in Central Anatolia’s historic Cappadocia region, and included Aris Messinis' series, Death in the Mediterranean, for Agence France Presse (AFP) that took the News Series Award; Adam Pretty’s, Below the Surface taken for Getty Images won the Sports Single Award, while Patrick Smith received the Sports Series Award.

Mary Gelman won the top prize in the Portrait-Multiple category for her images of domestic violence victims. There was no winner in the Portrait-Single category.

Kemal Jufri’s Feeding Orphaned Orangutans won the Nature-Environment Story Award, while Johnny Miller's Papwa Sewgolum Golf Course photo series took home the Nature-Environment Single Award.

A total of $133,000 was awarded in eight separate categories, in addition to $3,000 for the Young Photojournalist Award and a separate $10,000 Photo of the Year Award.

The 126 images will be on display at the CerModern Arts Center until May 30. The exhibition was previously displayed in Istanbul April 2-16.

The awards are sponsored by Turkish Airlines and the Turkish Coordination and Cooperation Agency (TIKA).