The Guardian picks AFP’s Turkish photographer Kılıç best in 2014
AFPâs Turkish photographer Bülent Kılıç has been picked by The Guardian newspaperâs picture desk as the contested agency photographer of the year.
âHereâs a look back over 2014 through his lens, showing unrest in Ukraine, the refugee crisis on the Turkish-Syrian border and the harrowing MH17 air crash,â the U.K. paper wrote on a photo gallery, as he was announced the winner.
Kılıçâs photographs from the Ukrainian unrest, Istanbul clashes between riot police and protesters following the funeral of 16-year-old Gezi Park victim Berkin Elvan, the Soma mine disaster which claimed 301 lives and the refugee flood to Turkey from Syria were displayed by The Guardian.
In December, Kılıç received Time Magazineâs prestigious Best Wire Photographer of 2014 award, with his stunning shots in a busy year full of events in Turkey.
His photograph catching the emotion of a father seeing his miner son rescued became a defining image of the distress that followed the worst mining disaster in Turkeyâs history in the Aegean coal capital of Soma.
Kılıç recalls the situation as a thorny one for a photographer. âSome miners and their families were attacking the press. You have to understand: their children, their husbands were trapped in the mine,â he told Time Magazine, recognizing that the picture was a âvery important oneâ for him.
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