21 April 2016•Update: 28 April 2016
ANKARA
The same image of refugees that won a prize for Russian photojournalist Sergey Ponomarev at the Istanbul Photo Awards has now also won the Pulitzer Prize.
Ponomarev’s image had captured the struggle of Syrian refugees for The New York Times. He won the Photo of the Year 2016 award at the Anadolu Agency-organized competition for Single News in March this year.
The Pulitzer board announced Monday that Ponomarev had won the Pulitzer for the same photo.
Anadolu Agency Visual News Editor-in-Chief Ahmet Sel said this only showed that the Istanbul Photo Awards jury had made the right decision about the Russian photojournalist's image.
“The Istanbul awards jury shows how correctly they decided,” Sel said.
Esra Kirecci, Anadolu Agency corporate communications director, also expressed her appreciation about the Istanbul Photo Awards decision.
“Our awards have proven that it feels the pulse of international photojournalism sector,” Kirecci said.
On the cover of Istanbul Photo Awards 2015 book was Daniel Berehulak's photograph on the Ebola epidemic in Liberia.
Taken for The New York Times, the image captured the drama of the deadly outbreak and was selected as "Photo of the Year 2015" at the Istanbul Photo Awards. Later, the same picture was awarded the Pulitzer Prize too.
The Istanbul Photo Awards held in March also succeeded in drawing global attention to recent developments in the Middle East.
A jury of international professionals had selected the winning photographs of Anadolu Agency’s second Istanbul Photo Awards, which was sponsored by Turkish Airlines.
*This story was changed April 28, 2016 to correct that winning photojournalist Sergey Ponomarev is Russian, and not Syrian as previously reported.
