Nikon Photo Contest 2014-2015

Category F Open theme:2nd place

Syria's leftover

emine_akbaba

Germany

Comment

"For most people, Syria is an exotic and foreign country. In recent decades, most citizens of democratic countries have not experienced war or any other related situations and do not know what fear of death is like. My aim is to show the personal consequences of a war that is only portrayed through the impersonal and sensationalized news reporting. I want to investigate the story and the feelings of one individual family. My motivation is to raise awareness for the impacts of this war and the miseries it has created for the Syrian people.
I felt a strong need to document and record the misery of war and the way in which it destroys many lives of families, and especially those of children. I want to show a personal story of this war, in contrast to the often sensationalized mass media coverage."

"Family Husyin is the story of one individual Syrian family who lived days after days in fear and misery and now try to start a new life in Turkey after they have escaped the war at night. It is the struggle for survival of a mother and her daughters. My first step to start the story was to find a family that is willing to share their story. Some month ago, I travelled to Mardin, a city in southeastern Turkey, about 30 km to the north of the border to Syria. Many of the Syrian people are afraid to speak about that what happened to them. Some of them still have family members in Syria who could be at risk as a result of their conversation with journalists such as myself, and the publication of their story. Turkiye Huseyin and her daughters allowed me to photograph and to film them. They invited me to live with them and I spent a lot of time with them. They started to trust me, but still were hesitant to reveal too much information about themselves. I am a German-born Turkish photographer (b.1987 in Hannover, German). Photography allows to sniff into other worlds and to become a part of them. I am interested in people and how they live. I like to discover the thinks around me. My photographic works are reflecting my main interests in the area of Human rights. Especially women´s right are in the focus of my photography. In majority Muslim countries and the Middle East, women’s right are still limited and one of the biggest social issues in the society. I believe projects have the abilitiy to raise awareness. I am a freelance photojournalist from Germany, currently in Hannover. I studied photojournalism at the Danish School of Media and Journalism in Aarhus, Denmark and at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Hannover"

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