Skip to main content

The 2017 World Press Photo of the year depicts 'the face of hatred'

On Monday, the World Press Photo Foundation announced the winners of the annual photo contest — and the gallery contains both some of the best images of the year and some of the worst moments. The jury selected Burhan Ozbilici’s photograph from just moments after a 22-year-old assassinated the Russian ambassador to Turkey, Andrey Karlov, as the Photo of the Year.

The World Press Photo contest highlights images that aren’t just artistically significant but culturally represent issues and events from the past year and Ozbilici’s image captured a difficult moment in an incredible way, according to the panel of judges. Ozbilici shot the photo while covering the art exhibition in Turkey that took an unexpected turn on December 19, 2016.

The image shows Mevlüt Mert Altıntaş wielding a gun and yelling just moments after the assassination. Altintas, an off-duty police officer, wounded three others before being killed in the resulting shootout.

“It was a very, very difficult decision, but in the end we felt that the picture of the year was an explosive image that really spoke to the hatred of our times,” said jury member Mary F. Calvert. “Every time it came on the screen you almost had to move back because it’s such an explosive image and we really felt that it epitomizes the definition of what the World Press Photo of the Year is and means.”

Ozbilici, a staff photographer for the Associated Press in Istanbul, also received first place in the Spot News Series category for the set of images he took from the assassination.

“Right now I see the world marching towards the edge of an abyss. This is a man who has clearly reached a breaking point and his statement is to assassinate someone who he really blames, a country that he blames, for what is going on elsewhere in the region. I feel that what is happening in Europe, what is happening in America, what is happening in the Far East, Middle East, Syria, and this image to me talks of it. It is the face of hatred,” said jury member João Silva.

Along with selecting the photo of the year, the contest also named several category winners from people to nature, picking 45 category winners. Each category was divided into both single images and an image series.

Over 5,000 photographers from 125 countries entered the 2017 contest. The panel of judges viewed 80,408 images for the contest. To view all 45 winners, visit the World Press Photo gallery.

Editors' Recommendations

Hillary K. Grigonis
Hillary never planned on becoming a photographer—and then she was handed a camera at her first writing job and she's been…
See the brilliant winning images of the 2016 Sony World Photo Awards
sony world photography awards 2016 falling kickboxer

Asghar Khamseh has been named L'Iris d'Or Photographer of the Year of the 2016 Sony World Photography Awards. The Iranian photojournalist won for a series of portraits ("Fire of Hatred") highlighting the violent act of acid throwing against women and children in Iran. Khamseh takes home the $25,000 prize.

Khamseh was one of sixty photographers from around the world who were named National Awards winners of the 2016 Sony World Photography Awards, in partnership with the World Photography Organisation, on March 21. The judges, who announced the overall winners on April 21, said of Khamseh's work: "Portraits of disfigurement resulting from social violence are undoubtedly a hard-hitting subject, and one which the longstanding tradition of documentary photography does not shy away from. The power of Asghar Khamseh’s imposing series ‘Fire of Hatred’ is such that he enables the viewer to face head-on intimate images, which could be testing to examine closely, with empathy and respect which in turn allows the viewer to become a witness and not just a spectator. The Jury were united in their admiration of this work and the light it shed on the tragic practice it exposes."

Read more
Plight of refugees traveling across Europe wins 2015 World Press Photo of the Year
world press photo 2017 warren richardson 2015

A photo of a man passing a baby through a fence at the Hungarian-Serbian border has been named the 59th World Press Photo of the Year. The striking photo, "Hope for a New Life," was captured by Warren Richardson, a freelance photographer. Richardson's photo shows refugees crossing the border from Serbia into Hungary, near Horgoš (Serbia) and Röszke (Hungary), on the evening of August 25, 2015. The man and child in the photo were part of the movement of people seeking to cross into Hungary before a secured fence was completed.

"I camped with the refugees for five days on the border," Richardson said. "A group of about 200 people arrived, and they moved under the trees along the fence line. They sent women and children, then fathers and elderly men first. I must have been with this crew for about five hours and we played cat and mouse with the police the whole night. I was exhausted by the time I took the picture. It was around three o’clock in the morning and you can’t use a flash while the police are trying to find these people, because I would just give them away. So I had to use the moonlight alone."

Read more
World record! 14-year-old solves Rubik’s Cube record in under 5 seconds
watch this incredible video of the rubiks cube world record being beaten mem 5

Toy trends come and go, but somehow, the Rubik's Cube endures in the form of contests dedicated to solving the famous puzzle faster than ever before. The famous toy remains an enduring toy icon of the 1980's. Last week, a fourteen-year-old at one of these events in Clarksville, Maryland, shattered the world record in a competition to solve the puzzle, doing so in under five seconds.

Lucas Etter set a time of 4.9 seconds, crushing the previous world record time of 5.25. That kind of time jump in the record is rare in the history of cube-solving, yet the record has been reset twice this year.

Read more